The Process

We start by washing, prepping and dicing over 50 kilos of beautiful fresh Australian grown eggplants into neat cubed pieces and bag them in 10kg bags. We then soak tamarind in warm water to extract the tangy juice. Jaggery, an Indian date palm sugar is also left to soak in some vinegar.

An aromatic mix of whole spices are carefully toasted one spice at a time from the largest to the finest, and the whole spice mix is cooled before Latasha starts to grind it to a heady dark mix in her trusted spice mill. The kitchen is filled with a spicy, roasted aroma. Powders including tumeric and chilli are also weighed and measured.

Meanwhile the rest of the team check, taste and prepare onions, ginger, garlic and our other fresh ingredients delivered straight from the market.

When the ingredients are ready, a large pan is heated with fragrant mix of mustard and canola oils until the kitchen is pungent. To this aromatic oil, ginger, onion and garlic are added. Once these are caramelised on a low heat, minced green chillies and dry ground spices are added into this heady mix and then cooked through. Next the cubed eggplants and Latasha’ special blend of spices and sea salt are added.

The pot mixture is carefully tossed until every single eggplant is coated with the paste. This process of continually turning and mixing continues for hours until the eggplant juices are released and start to evaporate.

Once the mixture starts to thicken up; tamarind juice and other liquid ingredients are added.

The chutney is tasted a number of times as it heats and thickens to the right taste, thickness and glossiness.

Once tests are done to ensure the right pH is obtained, the chutney is bottled, capturing the essence and goodness of all the ingredients.

Heat: Spicy

Make it cooler: This can be cooled with coconut cream, coconut milk, fresh cream, yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese, hummus or tahini.