Without sauces, it is difficult to imagine a complete meal in the modern world. After all, they are not only able to make dishes more attractive in appearance and pleasant in taste, aroma and texture. Sauces can help the hostess diversify the number of dishes prepared from the same type of food. In addition, the use of sauces speeds up and facilitates the preparation of certain dishes.
The origins of most seasoning sauces are in French or Georgian cuisine, where they are so important that they are almost inseparable from ordinary food. But in the vast majority of cases, modern life is so practical that people do not have time for culinary delights. And almost all the variety of sauces that exist in the world has been reduced to several varieties of ketchup, which has become a household name when they want to talk about the use of a particular sauce. So, tkemali ketchup recipes sometimes deviate far from traditional Georgian recipes for making this sauce. Nevertheless, in order for the hostess to have the right to choose according to her taste, the article will also present traditionally Caucasian ingredients for making tkemali sauce, and possible options for replacing them.
Tkemali, what is it
While most people associate ketchup with a tomato-based sauce, tkemali is an exclusively Georgian condiment, which consists of fruit and aromatic-spicy components.
Since it grows mainly on the territory of Georgia, it is quite often customary to replace it with any kind of mountain cherry plum. In principle, for the preparation of tkemali sauce, you can use cherry plum of any color: red, yellow, green. Since in recent years many varieties of cultivated cherry plum, often called “ plum”, have appeared in Our Country, many people willingly use it not only for making jam, but also for making incredibly fragrant and exotic tkemali sauce, which is especially good in combination with meat dishes. However, it is not forbidden to use the most ordinary plum for making this sauce, although this somewhat contradicts traditional Caucasian ideas, since the taste of the sauce should be exactly sour, due to the acid of the fruit.
Tkemali sauce should be quite spicy, but still, the main fragrant note, in addition to plums and hot peppers, is brought into it by various spicy herbs, primarily cilantro and pennyroyal.
Due to the sour taste of tkemali ketchup, it is simply indispensable for making kharcho soup. And in the Caucasus, in addition to an additive to meat dishes and chicken, the sauce is often used to dress dishes from cabbage, eggplant, beets and beans.
Real Georgian recipe
To make ketchup from tkemali plums for the winter, you need to find and prepare the following components:
- Plum tkemali (apricot) – 2 kg;
- Garlic – 1 head of medium size;
- Ombalo (marsh mint) – 200 grams;
- Dill (grass with inflorescences) – 150 g;
- Fresh cilantro – 300 grams;
- Hot red pepper – 1-2 pods;
- Water – 0,3 liters;
- Large rock salt – 2 teaspoons with a slide;
- Sugar – optional 1-2 tbsp. spoons;
- Coriander seeds – 4-5 peas;
- Imeretian saffron – 1 teaspoon.
Instead of plums, you can use cherry plums of different colors and even ordinary sweet and sour plums in tkemali. But keep in mind that in the latter case, you will have to add a tablespoon of wine vinegar to your workpiece so that it is well preserved for the winter.
Ombalo or pennyroyal grows mainly in Georgia, so it is not easy to find it. Often, many housewives replace it with ordinary meadow mint or even lemon balm. True, there is an opinion that if there is no pennyroyal, then in this case it is best to replace it with thyme or thyme in the same quantities.
It will not be so difficult to find the rest of the ingredients for the sauce, so the following is a description of the process of making tkemali plum ketchup.
How to cook
Wash cherry plum or plum, fall asleep in water and boil at least to the point where the bones are easily separated from the pulp.
After that, the cherry plum mass cools and is freed from stones. The peel can be left, it will not interfere at all, but, on the contrary, will add additional sourness to the tkemali sauce. Then cherry plums or pitted plums are again put on fire, dill tied in a bunch, chopped hot peppers, de-seeded and salt are added to them. Hot pepper can also be used dry, but all other herbs for making real tkemali sauce must be fresh.
Cherry plum puree is boiled for about 30 minutes. About 250 g of sauce should come out of one kilogram of cherry plum after boiling. While the fruit puree is boiling, chop the garlic and all the remaining greens in a blender. After the required boiling time has elapsed, carefully remove the sprigs of dill with inflorescences from the puree and discard. After that, add all the greens with garlic, the necessary spices, and sugar, if you see fit, to the future sauce. Thoroughly mix all the ingredients, put the sauce back on the heat and boil for another 10-15 minutes.
Ketchup tkemali is ready. To save it for the winter, sterilize in advance small tall jars of 0,5-0,75 liters. Since the sauce turns out to be quite liquid, you can also use glass containers from industrial sauces with screw lids to store it. Lids for storage for the winter must be sterilized.
The easiest way to store tkemali sauce is in the refrigerator, but prepared according to all the rules, it may well stand in a cool place where direct sunlight does not fall.
A simple recipe for ketchup tkemali
If you are not a staunch supporter of Caucasian cuisine, but you are just a little tired of ordinary tomato ketchups and want to quickly and easily prepare a delicious and original plum sauce, then you can use the following tkemali recipe.
Take one kilogram of sour plums, apples, ripe tomatoes and bell peppers. In addition, you need to cook 5 heads of garlic, 2 pods of hot peppers, herbs (50 grams of basil, cilantro, parsley, dill), sugar – 50 grams and salt – 20 grams.
All fruits and vegetables are freed from excess parts (peel, seeds, husks) and cut into slices. Then tomatoes, plums, apples, both varieties of pepper, herbs and garlic are crushed using a meat grinder.
The resulting puree from fruits, vegetables and herbs is placed on the fire and boiled for 15-20 minutes. Stir everything with a wooden spatula to avoid burning. Add sugar and salt, stir and boil for another 5 minutes. After that, distribute the finished tkemali ketchup into sterile jars, roll up and store in a cool place.
Tkemali ketchup is easy to prepare, but it is able to bring the aroma and taste of summer fruits, vegetables and herbs to the everyday winter menu and will go well with almost any dish.
