Cornelian Cherry Sauce with Herbs, Garlic and Chili for Meat
Caucasian cuisine holds the cornelian cherry in high regard. Cornelian cherry sauce, with its delicate, pleasant aroma and light tartness, is always in demand as a condiment for grilled meat. The berries are so healthy that in the Caucasus the cornelian cherry is called the mighty doctor.
The berries are made into a fruit leather, lavash, said to cure every ailment. The mashed berries are dried, shaped into flat cakes and dried again. Then they're eaten as a vitamin remedy against scurvy.
Among the huge variety of Caucasian sauces, cornelian cherry sauce holds a leading place, along with tkemali, plum sauce and adjika. Autumn is when cornelian cherries ripen, and it's time to make the sauce.
The cornelian cherry (Latin Cornus, known in Ukrainian as kizil) is a shrub or small deciduous fruit tree. The name kizil comes from the Turkic kyzyl, “red.” Its wood is extraordinarily hard and was once used for loom shuttles, arrows, equipment for Eastern martial arts and for decoration. I read somewhere that it was even used for wooden daggers. In the Caucasus, most of the fastening parts of grape presses are made from cornelian cherry wood.
Legends and fairy tales have been told about the cornelian cherry, and poets compared its juice to blood. The dogwood flower, of the same genus, is an official emblem in several places around the world. As soon as the cornelian cherries are ripe, it's time to make cornelian cherry sauce for winter.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Cornelian cherries 0.5 kg
- Mixed herbs (cilantro, dill, mint) 1 bunch
- Chili pepper 1-2
- Khmeli suneli 1 tsp
- Garlic 4-5 cloves
- Wine vinegar to taste
- Olive oil 1 tbsp
- Salt, sugar to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- Sort through the cornelian cherries, discarding any crushed or spoiled berries. Don't use underripe ones, or the sauce will turn out sour and harsh. Remove any stems and leaves left from picking. Rinse the berries under running water.
- Put the berries in a pot or kazan and add cold water to just cover them.
- Bring to a boil and cook the cornelian cherries over low heat for 15 minutes. The water shouldn't bubble hard, just barely simmer.
- Wash all the herbs and chop them very finely, the finer the better, as for green sauce. You can even grind them in a mortar. If you have a chopper or blender, the job gets much easier. But chopping by hand is better.
- Finely chop the seeded, stemmed chili pepper and the peeled garlic with a knife, leaving visible bits. Add 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar and the khmeli suneli and, if the cornelian cherries are overripe and sweet, 1/2 tbsp wine vinegar. Mix.
- When the cornelian cherries are cooked, drain the liquid into a separate container, let the berries cool a little and go through them by hand, removing the pits. Make sure not a single pit ends up in the sauce.
- Chop the cornelian cherry flesh very finely with a knife, almost to a puree. Mix the puree with the spicy dressing and add 1 tbsp olive oil.
- Then pour the whole mixture into a pot, add the liquid left from cooking the berries and bring to a boil. The sauce should be thick enough not to pour on its own, yet not so thick you'd need a knife to cut it. It should be like thick homemade sour cream. Simmer the cornelian cherry sauce over low heat for 10 minutes.
- Get some small jars ready for the sauce and sterilize them with boiling water.
- Pour the sauce into the jars while still boiling, right to the top, and seal with lids. Small 100 g jars with screw-on lids are very handy.
- In jars like these, the sauce keeps in the fridge for a very long time without spoiling.
- Cornelian cherry sauce goes beautifully with meat and fish. And on its own, simply spread on lavash, it's delicious too. Meat marinated in this sauce is very tasty as well.
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 58 |
| Prep: | 10 mins |
| Cook: | 50 mins |
| Total: | 60 mins |
| Category: | Snacks and Sauces |
| Cuisine: | Caucasian cuisine |
| Rating: |
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4.4
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