Imli chutney

Imli ki chutney is the sweet-and-sour chutney that chaat counters across India spoon over golgappa, bhel puri, sev puri and samosa. The base is tamarind soaked and pressed to a thick pulp, then cooked with jaggery until the two meet in the middle. Its Hindi name comes straight from the fruit: imli is tamarind. The same tamarind does the sharpening in tomato rasam.

This is the home version, built on equal weights: 100 g of tamarind to 100 g of jaggery, with chilli, dry ginger and cumin doing the seasoning. Jaggery rather than white sugar is the classic choice, and it gives the chutney a deeper, molasses-like sweetness against the sharp fruit. The spice mix stays small so the sweet-and-sour balance leads.

The chutney should coat the back of a spoon when hot and thicken a little more as it cools; if yours comes out thicker than you like, stir in a spoon of hot water. For a thinner pouring chutney, stop the simmer a minute early; for a jam-like one, give it two minutes more. Tamarind and jaggery both vary from batch to batch, so the final tasting decides the balance.