Cherry plum sauce is traditional for Georgian cuisine. It can be made from red and yellow fruits. The sauce ideally complements the taste of meat and poultry dishes. Georgian chefs call it "tkemali", since initially the cherry plum of the same name was used as the raw material for its preparation.
Cherry plum is a product high in vitamins, minerals, pectins and low in calories. It contains a lot of potassium and magnesium. Regular consumption of this fruit helps to increase the protective properties of the body, and also helps to remove toxins and toxins. Cherry plum cleans blood vessels from cholesterol, normalizes blood pressure. You can cook jam or compote from it, but sauces prepared on its basis are especially bright.
Tkemali - spicy cherry plum sauce
To prepare a fragrant classic Georgian tkemali, you need to choose a mixture of red and yellow cherry plum. The finished sauce will turn out to be very tasty and will acquire a pleasant shade. In order to cook tkemali, you need the following ingredients:
- 1.5 kg of yellow cherry plum (better slightly underripe than overripe);
- 1.5 kg of red cherry plum or tkemali plums;
- a large bunch of cilantro;
- small head of garlic;
- 2 pods of red hot pepper;
- half a glass of sugar;
- a little salt;
- a few sprigs of fresh mint mint (can be replaced with peppermint);
- a little hops-suneli.
Cooking steps:
- Rinse the cherry plums and red plums well, remove the seeds and carefully put in a saucepan with a thick bottom. Sprinkle them with a little sugar and let stand for about 20 minutes, then put the dishes on low heat. If the cherry plum has let out a little juice, you can pour some water into the pan.
- Remove the dishes from the heat and rub the contents through a sieve after the cherry plum has cooled down a little.
- Put the cherry plum puree and plums in a saucepan and cook over low heat. The puree should decrease in volume by about 2 times and become thick.
- Rinse cilantro and mint and chop very finely with a knife. Swamp mint (ombalo) is ideal for making Georgian sauce. This herb has a specific taste and aroma. In the absence of ombalo, you can replace it with regular peppermint, but the taste of the sauce will turn out to be a little different. Peel the garlic and immediately pass through a press. Peel hot pepper, remove the top and grind it with a blender. You can pass all the peeled ingredients along with the herbs through a manual or electric meat grinder or grind with a blender. This will make the sauce more uniform.
- Add chopped herbs, garlic and pepper to the sauce, pour the suneli hops, salt and the remaining sugar into a saucepan, then boil for 5 minutes with regular stirring. Pour the finished sauce gently into jars and, after cooling, remove to a cool place.
Yellow cherry plum sauce
To make a yellow cherry plum sauce, you will need the following ingredients:
- 1 kg of yellow cherry plum;
- 100 g of mint (it is better to take fresh mint, but you can also crushed dry powder);
- 1 pod of hot red pepper;
- head of garlic;
- large bunch of cilantro;
- dill bunch;
- a bunch of parsley;
- a little coriander (no more than 1 tsp);
- 1 tsp hop-suneli;
- some salt (coarsely ground and not iodized);
- 4 tsp sugar.
Cooking steps:
- Rinse the cherry plum thoroughly. Sort damaged fruits. If you come across unripe fruits, they can be used to make a sauce. The seeds can not be removed, since it is more convenient to pull them out of the boiled fruit. Place the cherry plum in a small pot of water and boil for 20-30 minutes.
- Drain the broth into a separate bowl. You do not need to pour it out, as it can later be used to make the consistency of the sauce more liquid. Rub the cherry plum through a sieve. You should get a fairly smooth puree.
- Rinse the greens thoroughly. Peel the garlic and red hot peppers and chop together with the herbs with a blender. You can skip everything through a meat grinder.
- Put the plum puree neatly in a saucepan with a thick bottom, pour sugar and salt, as well as spices into it, then boil for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add chopped herbs to the saucepan and cook the sauce for another 10 minutes. The sauce from the plums should not be too thick. If you need to dilute it, just add a little cherry plum broth to the pan. You can make the sauce thicker by increasing the boil time. If tkemali turned out to be sour, it is permissible to add a little sugar to it.
- Pour the prepared sauce into the jars. To keep it longer, you can pre-sterilize the jars, but if tkemali is prepared as an addition to the main course, you can simply pour it into the jar and put it in the refrigerator after cooling.
Green cherry plum sauce
Even green cherry plum, which is not ripe, is suitable for making hot sauce. Such a preparation will have a rather sour taste and will ideally complement the second courses of potatoes and meat. To cook the sauce you will need:
- 1 kg of unripe cherry plum;
- several sprigs of ombalo;
- 1 hot pepper pod;
- 5 cloves (small) garlic;
- large bunch of cilantro;
- dill bunch;
- a bunch of parsley;
- a little salt (large and not iodized);
- 4 tsp sugar.
Cooking steps:
- Rinse the cherry plums, put in a saucepan with a thick bottom, add a little water and cook for 20 minutes, then cool and rub through a sieve.
- Rinse the greens and ombalo, peel the garlic, and cut off the top of the pepper, remove the seeds. Pass all the ingredients through a meat grinder or grind with a blender. If you can't get fresh ombalo grass, you can replace it with thyme, mint or lemon balm. With lemon balm, the sauce will turn out to be more interesting in taste.
- Put the mashed potatoes through a sieve in a saucepan and boil for 10 minutes, then add the chopped ingredients and cook for another 10 minutes.
- Pour the prepared sauce into sterile jars and tighten with sterile lids if long-term storage is expected. This sauce can be served with meat and potatoes. It goes very well with kebabs and fried poultry.
Cherry plum sauce with walnuts
The addition of walnuts gives the sauce a pleasant taste. To prepare such a sauce, you will need:
- 2 kg of ripe and fragrant cherry plum;
- several sprigs of ombalo;
- mint bunch;
- 5 cloves of garlic;
- large bunch of cilantro;
- a bunch of parsley;
- 500 g of walnuts in shell;
- a little coarse salt;
- 4 tablespoons sugar.
Cooking steps:
- Rinse the yellow ripe cherry plum and remove the seeds from it. Put the fruits in a bowl, grind with a blender until smooth. Place the puree in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.
- Peel the walnuts from the shell. Remove all solid partitions. Grind the nut with a blender. You can grate it or mince it, but this is a laborious process.
- Rinse greens, mint well, dry and chop with a sharp knife. Peel the garlic and carefully pass through a press.
- Boil the plum puree over low heat for 10 minutes, then add the garlic and herbs, boil for another 5 minutes. Add walnuts to a saucepan and cook over low heat for 5 minutes.
- Pour the prepared sauce into jars and put in the cold.
All sauces based on cherry plum have a sour taste. If you want to make it even more sour, you can add a little lemon juice to it. For a liter of ready-made sauce, it is enough to add 1 tbsp. l juice. Adding vinegar can spoil the taste of the finished product.
To give the sauce a spicy and very original taste, you can add a few clove buds, allspice to it. They must first be crushed into powder. You can add spices to the pan at the stage of boiling the cherry plum. At the same time, the fruits will acquire the desired flavor.
The value of cherry plum sauce lies in its naturalness. It does not contain preservatives, harmful dyes and is perfectly stored in the refrigerator for several months. A sterilized product prepared at home can be stored for more than a year.
