Indian Salsa: Kachumber Recipe (Chop Chop Salad)

Indian meals are typically composed of a starch such as basmati rice or flat breads (naan, roti, paratha), a meat dish (or fish), a lentil dish such as kali dal,  crudité-style vegetables such as horseradish and cucumbers, raita, and of course kachumber.

So, you ask, what is kachumber? Kachumber, also spelled cachumbar or kachumbar, is often referred to as "chop chop salad". It's a blend of onions, chiles and raw vegetables with lemon juice and other spices. It looks very similar to regular salsa but with a lot more onions and a lot more heat. For regular salsa, there’s usually a tomato base, whereas in the Indian version, onion and lemon form the base of the flavor. It’s wonderfully refreshing, and really cuts through the heaviness of Indian dishes.

Vietnamese Peanut Hoisin Dipping Sauce Recipe (Tuong Goi Cuon)

We brought summer rolls this weekend for a barbecue potluck. Traditionally, the rolls are served with a sauce made from liver but as a child, I always had an aversion to it. So I made tương gỏi cuốn (which literally translates to "sauce for salad rolls" in Vietnamese) with ingredients that would be appealing to a Western palate.

The condiment is a blend of peanut butter, hoisin sauce, ginger garlic paste, đậu (lentils), coconut water and a few ingredients that balance the sweet and sour taste. For more crunch, the summer rolls are first dipped in chopped peanuts.

Whether you serve this sauce with summer shrimp rolls or veggie spring rolls, it will knock your socks off!

Pickled Plums and Onions (Home Canning Recipe)

Lulu and the girls gathered 4 large baskets of plums from our garden. I'm the only one who enjoys eating them fresh due to their sour-tasting skin, even though the flesh is sweet.

Instead of making my usual sweet fresh fruit preserves, I decided to pair the plums with the last crop of Creole onions and make plum and onion pickles.

Pickling fruit and vegetables is a lot easier that you might imagine. I made a sweet and sour brine out of white balsamic vinegar and agave nectar in which to submerge the fruits and vegetables. I added several spices such as juniper berries, a bay leaf, clove, garlic and cardamom seeds.

I let the food cure for about 6 weeks. Check back soon and see what I serve the pickles with!

Chile Jam Recipe (Homemade Habanero Sauce)

Last season, my husband Lulu harvested so many peppers from the garden that I had to make a lot of preserves to use them up. If you've been following me on Facebook, I didn’t get a lot of sleep over the weekend because of an over-dose of caffeine. I went on a cleaning spree to pass the time, and while I was tidying up, I found our last jar of chile jam. We used a combination of red Habanero (which is probably the spiciest chile you'll ever taste), red Thai chiles and a small red bell pepper to temper the heat. Still, this recipe will knock your socks off!

When Lulu and I first got married, I remember him calling me a wimp when it came to spicy food. I used to find black pepper spicy! But over the last 6 years, I've learned to enjoy it. I guess marrying into an Indian family helped numb my taste buds. For Father's Day, we held a contest on who would be able to stand eating intensely spicy cuisine. Daddy, my father-in-law, is an expert and of course, he won, but I was able to do better than the girls.

Daddy said the chile jam wasn't as spicy as he had expected but if you're not as tolerant of the heat, prepare a tall glass of milk on the side and enjoy with some toast.

Loquat Apricot Chutney Recipe

Loquat and apricot may not make the most traditional chutney, but it is delicious. I’ve wanted to use the fresh loquats I got from my aunt to make a dish that really highlights the ingredient, and fruit chutney seemed like an obvious choice.

Since I made so much, I canned the chutney and stored it for future use. I let it rest for a week and opened our first jar today. The flavor was amazing. There were still some chunks of loquats in it, and the hint of spices from the red chili powder and mustard provided a mild, lingering heat that follows closely behind the sweetness of the fruit.

There are many ways to use the chutney, but I opted to pair it with roasted chicken breast wrapped in smoked turkey slices. A-ma-zing!