Ranjaka recipe
Discover how to make Ranjaka, a flavorful red chili chutney in the traditional style of North Karnataka, with step-by-step pictures. Ranjaka is an immensely popular and easy-to-make chutney known for its fiery spice. It is typically served alongside jowar roti or jolada rotti, but it also pairs well with chapati and rice. The ingredients for Ranjaka include fresh red chilies, salt, lemon, mustard, fenugreek seeds, and asafoetida.Ranjaka holds a special place in North Karnataka households, where it is commonly prepared and stored in the refrigerator, similar to pickles or thokku.This Ranjaka will be too spicy and you need to use it like pickle. But it tastes too good. So if you like spicy food, then this is a must try recipe.
Ingredients
- 1/4 kg fresh red chili
- 4 lemon
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 2 tsp fenugreek seeds
- 1 tsp asafoetida
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1/4 cup salt or as per your taste
Instructions
- Take fresh red chilies. If you don't get fresh red chilies, you can use dry red chilies, refer notes.
- Rinse the chilies well.
- Next remove the stems and spread them on a news paper or cotton cloth. Let them dry completely, make sure there is no water content.
- Just before starting the grinding process, we need to prepare tempering. Heat oil in a small pan. Add in mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and asafoetida. If using powdered asafoetida, add it at the end.
- Switch off the stove when mustard seed starts spluttering. Keep it aside, let it become cool.
- Also cut the lemons and extract the juice. Keep it aside.
- Next roughly chop the red chilies. Making 3 – 4 pieces should be alright.
- Next transfer chopped red chilies and salt into a mixer grinder and grind it. If required you can use lemon juice while grinding but do not add any water.
- Add in tempering prepared and grind it again for a while.
- Transfer it into a bowl. Add the remaining lemon juice. Adjust the salt and sour level. Store it in a glass container. You can refrigerate it for few months and use it. After 4 – 5 days, you can serve it with jolada roti or chapathi or rice.
- Below is the image of ranjaka prepared using dry red chili. I have soaked red chili in water for 2 hours and followed the same recipe.
Notes:
- Fresh red chili has to be used..however you can replace it with dry red chili.
- You can replace lemon juice with thick tamarind pulp.
- You can replace asafoetida with garlic, if you like the garlic taste.
- If preparing in large quantity, tempering can be added just before serving, for small quantity.
- Adjust salt and lemon juice quantity as per your taste.
- If using dry red chili, then either soak it or boil it or use as it is.
- Dry red chili gives you dry red chutney, which tastes equally good.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!