Tomato Chutney

Tomato Chutney


If you are a regular reader of my blog, you would have noticed my admiration for tomatoes. Especially at this time of the year, they are at their best of looks and taste. They come in such strange shapes and shades of red. Despite getting such a variety I still have not had any luck finding green tomatoes (unripe). Anyway, what I noticed now was that when tomatoes are in season even the cheapest variety tastes good. I say so because in winter most tomatoes expect those on the vine would barely have any juice and flavourless. With bags of ‘red’ in my cupboard, I have a number of recipes I could do – from tomato rasam, rice, pickle, chutney, sauce etc. As I was making a variety of Indian tiffin, chutney was the most recent item. Lack of time and energy meant a very simple chutney but without compromise in taste and flavour. Here it is...

5-6 ripe tomatoes cut into chunks

2 pinches of fenugreek seeds

1 teaspoon cooking oil

½ teaspoon red chilly powder

½ teaspoon sambar powder (optional)

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

Asafoetida

Salt to taste

In a heavy bottomed pan, add teaspoon cooking oil and fry the fenugreek seeds, add turmeric powder and asafoetida. Add the tomatoes and required salt.

Once the tomatoes have turned mushy add chilly powder and sambar powder. Cook for 3-5 more minutes.

Allow to cool and grind to desired consistency. Great with dosa, idli, adai, roti etc. You could even use it as
a spread in a sandwich.

You could skip sambar powder but I prefer to keep it as it lends more flavour and aroma. If desired you could add a quarter teaspoon tamarind paste depending of your taste, along with the tomatoes. If desired you could temper some mustard seeds and add after grinding.