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{Due to a recent virus attack I lost a whole bunch of recipe on my blog. I am slowly working on posting them back one by one. I am going to start with the recipes I am getting most requests for. If you remember/want to try one of my earlier recipes which is now not in this blog please write to be at chinmayie.bhat@gmail.com and i’ll try to post it as soon as possible. I am basically just going to re-post the recipe as it was. So some of the content might not be so relevant today but my intention is to get them all back  and I  have over 80 posts to re-blog. Thank you! }

Food blogging can be quite preoccupying sometimes. After I started blogging, any exiting recipe, any new vegetable in the market, any seasonal fruit I see all I can think of is to share it with all my readers. If you are a foodblogger I know you are nodding your head right now.

I bought a pack of fresh Indian Gooseberries the other day.  From the time I picked these little beauties up I have been thinking how I want to cook it for my blog. Of course I thought of all the very popular to almost unknown recipes I can use gooseberries in. But I couldn’t resist nibbling on a few of them everyday.  Half of them were gone by day 3. That’s when the thought hit me! I didn’t really want to make anything out of these gooseberries! I simply wanted to eat them as they are.

So today I am going to blog about how I like to eat Gooseberries!

Indian gooseberry, or aamla or Nellikai in karnataka is sour, bitter, astringent and quite fibrous. Gooseberries are one of the best sources of natural vitamin C. It contains 20 times more vitamin C than an orange. It is believed to have great medicinal properties according to Ayurveda.

In India Gooseberries were traditionally used in pickles, chutneys and other curries when in season. They were also preserved by soaking in salted water (with or without turmeric) which wan then used regularly used through out the year. Gooseberry murabba is another very well known sweet preserve which is absolutely mouthwatering with any indian flat bread. At home we make ‘Tambli’s’ out of gooseberries which is one of my favorite ways to eat it. But my one and only absolute favorite way to eat and alma is to eat it fresh, as it is!

Gooseberries have a very strong taste. They are REALLY sour with bitter overtones. It is an acquired taste for sure.  Not everybody can handle it well For us though it comes naturally. We grew up eating gooseberries, freshly plucked from the tree by the dozen. Our farm had quite a few gooseberry trees and going gooseberry picking was one of our regular activities. While going we used to take some salt wrapped in a newspaper along with us. Yes! you are right… that’s the secret behind enjoying these tart fruits!

Let me tell you how we eat it, first bite into the hard surface of the gooseberry. As you chew the tiny little piece very sour juices will rush out of it into your mouth. Then immediately dip bitten part of the fruit in salt and take another bite. You will now see a great difference in taste. Gooseberry tastes so much better with a little bit of salt in it.

Now how to take this already wonderful experience to the next level? Gooseberries taste sweet with a sip of water along with it! As children it was a very fascinating experience for us. After finishing our gooseberries sprinkled with salt, we all would run to the kitchen to take a sip of water and the water would taste really really sweet. You have to taste it to believe it.

I am sure all of you who have experienced this would understand how hard it is to explain it. These are some of my dearest childhood memories and they are all associated with food.

What is your favorite way to Indian Gooseberries?