Surinam Cherry gojju/ Brazillian cherry tokku / Pitanga gojju or preserve

If had followed me or read my posts I have shared couple of posts on these attractive dark red berries called Suriname cherries. They are small, pretty & delicate fruits with very less shelf life if kept unused or untouched. If you have one plant/ tree of it, you get the fruits in abundance! That is nature’s bounty. I always scratch my head to get them in variety of dishes during season as I am a kind of person who hates wasting food/ fruit or whatever.

As these fruits are very sour & chat pata in taste, one can’t eat too many of them. At home kids don’t touch them or any other home grown fruits like figs or even papaya! So I end up making Jam, pickles, juice, chutney & this gojju.

It is a super easy recipe which gives you delicious gojju/ tokku as side dish to rice or chapathi or you can mix that with Rice to make rice item in no time. It is a lovely combination to curd rice too. Only time consuming part is cleaning and removing the seeds as they aren’t too big and worms and ants just love them! If you make this tokku once, you can store it for up to a week or more in refrigerator.

Now, I am sharing the recipe with you all.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Serves 1 cup

Ingredients:

Pitted Surinam cherry – 1 cup

Jaggery powder/ grated jaggery – 3 tbsp , Adjust as you like

Red chilli powder – ½ tsp, adjust to your taste

Turmeric powder – 1 generous pinch

Salt – ½ tsp or to taste

Cooking oil – 1 tbsp

Cloves of Garlic – 10-12

Mustard seeds – ½ tsp

Asafoetida/ hing – 1 pinch

 

Method:

• Wash Surinam cherries clean, check & remove if any bugs or ants present.
• With a sharp knife cut the tip of fruit having stamen as this part contains ants/ bugs generally. Then remove seeds with the help of fingers or knife. Discard seeds.
• Take the pitted cherries in a heavy pan or vessel, switch on the stove.
• Add salt, jaggery, turmeric powder & chilli powder.
• Stir once to mix well, bring the mixture to a boil.
• Keep the flame low and boil for few minutes stirring in between.
• Switch off the stove when it thickens & comes to the gojju consistency.
• Prepare a seasoning of mustard, garlics and asafoetida in oil. On spluttering & garlic turns brown, add it to the gojju.
• Serve with Rice, a dollop of ghee and this gojju or with curd rice.
• Store excess gojju in refrigerator.