Last Saturday we had a rendezvous with our friends, Sonali and Rohit at a dinner. Such unplanned meetups with close friends have a very calming and relaxed affect, especially when you are living by the deadlines for most part of your day.
While, I believe in the quote ‘Busy is the new happy’ and fast-paced life has its own thrill, such opportunities to hang-out with family or friends have their own significance.
After the initial teasing and quipping, our conversation steered towards the surge in addiction of technology and social media in lives of teenagers these days. Rohit narrated how his 16 year old nephew has constricted his life to just social media sites and apps- Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and twitter. The line separating the online world and the physical world seems to be getting blurrier and the pace of this change is unpleasantly faster than expected.
Every time when I find myself getting engaged in conversation of such nature, I cannot help but reminisce about my growing up years. We grew up in 90’s, when economic liberalization was ushered in and the growth of Information technology was in early stages. Television was our only source of entertainment and epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata brought us all together. Every Sunday, we would flock one of television owing affluent neighbor’s house and would not budge a bit until the end of these shows. I feel fortunate that I grew up in the era when technology had not taken over our family and social lives.
Our idea of social networking, though may seem a bit archaic today, was playing in open ground whole evening, gorging on delicacies at some friends house and licking on ice-creams and golas with our granny-our partner in crime.
Panipuri, Bhel poori were the only known street food items that we would crave for. Sandwich, though known to have English origins, had made its mark in our lives and my Mom had shown a great degree of magnanimity and acceptance when she began packing this convenient dish for my lunch. Mom would experiment with several different variants of Sandwiches. Sometimes, she would apply green chutney between two slices and at other times to break the monotony, red garlic chutney would be applied. Somedays, to make my lunch healthier, tomatoes, cucumber and boiled potatoes would be stuffed in and other times when I would crave for taste and spice a Batata Vada filling would be applied as a layer. How I wonder, in those days, with no exposure to YouTube or other search engines, our mothers would still innovate with such ease.
Few days ago my friend Taran who is from Delhi phoned me. We know each other, since our days of post-graduation in culinary arts at WGSHA, Manipal. Being a small group of PG students, we all knew each other quite well, which meant we would often dine together in college mess or a road-side stall. During this phone call, she brought back the memories from our frequent trips to one such Tapri (food stall). I would give special instructions to waiter “Anna extra green chutney lagake spicy sandwich” – (Apply some extra chutney between the slices). My friends would laugh at me and hotel owner and all the servers started recognizing me by the name, “Strong Adrak vali chai and Chutney Sandwich vali didi ki order hai”!
While we reflected on our happy moments amid the bout of laughter, it triggered an idea for our next recipe as well- Chutney Sandwich.
Chutney Sandwich is a quick and easy (possibly an Indian innovation? Jugaad) no frill dish that involves few basic ingredients. It’s a dish that you could pack for your kid’s lunch box. You can reduce the quantity of chilies, if your kids are not accustomed to spicy food. You can grill this sandwich to have another variant in form of Grilled Chutney Sandwich.
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Prepare this recipe and share your feedback with us in comment section below.
Green Chutney Sandwich-Kids Lunchbox recipe
Prep time:
Total time:
Serves:4-5
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Mint Leaves (Pudina)
- 1 Cup Fresh Coriander Leaves
- ½ Cup Fresh grated Coconut
- 1 tsp roasted Cumin Seeds Powder
- 1 Lemon Juice
- Salt
- 2 Green Chilies
- Bread Slices
- Butter
Instructions
- We will start with making Chutney. In a grinder jar, add Green Chilies, Coriander Leaves, Mint Leaves, Roasted Cumin Powder, Salt, Lemon Juice and Grated Coconut.
- Add some water. Grind into a fine and thick Chutney. Chutney must be of a spread like consistency. We have used 1-2 tbsp water while grinding chutney.
- Trim the edges of Bread Slices. Butter must be soft so that it can be applied on slices. We will start with applying butter on one slice
- Apply Chutney on other Slice.
- Place one slice on top of other
- Similarly, we will make other sandwiches.
- If you are packing this for your kid’s lunch box, cut these sandwiches in half. If you are serving these as a party snack, cut into bite size pieces.
- Serve Chutney Sandwich with Ketchup.
- Note: You can reduce Chilies if your kids do not eat spicy food. However, if you are going to eat this sandwich, you may increase the chilies
Click to watch recipe video
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