Dry Garlic Chutney for Vada Pav | Khopra Lehsun ki Chutney
A famous Maharashtrian recipe, this spicy dry garlic chutney, also known as khopra lehsun chutney, is tasty condiment used for Vada Pav.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Garlic cloves, peeled
- 1/4 cup dry Coconut flakes (or powder)
- 1/4 cup Dry Red Chili (or use Red Chili Powder)
- 1/2 tsp Cooking Oil
- 1 Tbsp Salt (adjust to taste)
- 1 Tbsp Roasted White Sesame Seeds (optional)
Instructions
Important: Each ingredient needs to be roasted individually and then cooled completely before grinding to a powder. If the ingredients are warm when you add to the blender, you'll end up with a wet (not dry) chutney.
Making the Chutney
- Coconut: If you're using coconut flakes, blitz it to a coarse powder. Then dry roast until it turns golden and aromatic. Set aside to cool completely.
- Dry roast the dried red chilies until they're crunchy. Let them cool completely. Then add them to the blender and blitz to a coarse powder. Skip this step in case you're using red chili powder.
- Heat a drop of oil in a pan and add the garlic cloves and fry for a minute or until the garlic turns aromatic, develops some color and dries out a bit. Allow it to cool completely.
- Add the garlic to the blender (which has the previously ground chilies). Blitz a few times to break it down to a coarse powder.
- Finally, add the reseerved roasted coconut powder and some salt to taste and grind until you have a dry and smooth chutney.
- Don't over-blend, or you'll end up with a wet or soggy chutney. For best results, blitz a few times, check for consistency, move things around and blitz again until you have your desired consistency.
- Optional step: Once the chutney is done, mix some roasted white sesame seeds with it for extra crunchy texture and flavor.
- Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. This can last upto a year.
Video
Notes
Garlic to Dry Coconut Ratio
- You can play around with the proportions based on your taste preference. I like a stronger garlic flavor, so I use more of that and less of the coconut.
- But as a thumb rule, you can start with a 50:50 ratio and then adjust based on your preference
- Chili Powder also can be adjusted based on how spicy you want the chutney to be. And even if the dried red chilies aren't enough, you can always add the red chili powder later to the chutney to increase its spice.
- In case you don't like the coconut flavor or don't want to use it for any reason, you will need some 'crunchy' element to keep the garlic chutney dry.
- What you can do is make a thick batter with besan (chickpea flour), salt, water. Then using a spoon or a piping bag, drop rough blobs of the batter into the oil to fry until crispy. Essentially, this is the "chura". Once this is cool, you can simply add this to the garlic instead of coconut powder and blend.