South Indian Tomato Chutney/ Tomato Onion Chutney

An accompaniment must be as palatable as the mains with which it gets served, sometimes even more. Indian cuisine has multitude of recipes for accompaniments and today we discuss one such recipe.

Almost a year ago, we became witness to our silent neighborhood that would stay deserted for most part of the day except during mornings-when those abandoned streets would come alive with activities of avid runners, passionate cyclists and other health freaks, transforming into a Khau Galli- a street flourished with numerous eateries. One of the first eatery that cropped up, and that caught my fancy with its green colored sign board and a beautiful image of banana leaf painted on it, was “Banana Leaf”.

We were delighted to have a restaurant in the neighborhood that boasted of serving Tamil Nadu cuisine. The one of first dishes that I try, albeit very skeptically, in every South Indian restaurant in Pune, is filter coffee. A cup of filter coffee is a telltale for these restaurants- a bad coffee will stop me in my tracks and I would order nothing more, whereas a coffee brewed rightly for my taste buds leaves a lasting impression compelling me to drive back to the place for that humbling experience. If you are wondering, whether did I enjoy my coffee, let me put it this way, I have visited the place almost fifty times now.

During one of our early morning meals at this place, we were served with the chutney-which happens to be the topic of today’s post- with our serving of Masala Dosa. This accompaniment made from tomatoes impressed us the most, as part of a meal we had that day. It was a perfect balance of tanginess of tomatoes, crunchiness of roasted lentils and spiciness of chilies creating a perfect medley of flavors that is expected of a chutney.

The restaurant owner has been sincerely forthright about his dishes, its ingredients and the method of preparation and has very unhesitatingly shared his recipes with us. Our exhibition of inquisitiveness was enough for him to part away with his recipe of this chutney.

Since then we have been making this preparation to accompany our Dosa and Idlis and never once have we been disappointed. If you are like us who unabashedly love their accompaniments and chutneys, make this perfectly balanced in flavors chutney and enjoy your South Indian meals.

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South Indian Tomato Chutney/ Tomato Onion Chutney

Rating  5.0 from 1 reviews

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  15 mins

Total time:  25 mins

Serves: 4-5

Ingredients

• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• 1 medium sized onion finely chopped
• 8-10 curry leaves
• 2 dried red chilies
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• ¼th tsp asafoetida powder
• ¼th tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp split Bengal gram
• 1 tsp split black gram(skinless)
• 3-4 green chilies chopped
• Coconut Oil
• Salt

Instructions

1. Heat 2 tbsp coconut oil in a pan.Put Bengal gram and Black gram.Fry until the lentils turn light brown.
2. As lentils turn brown, roasted aroma emanates from it. Add curry leaves and green chilies and fry.
3. Now add chopped onions. Fry until onions turn light brown. Add turmeric powder, chopped tomatoes, salt to taste and mix. Tomatoes must be cooked until they turn mushy.
4. When tomatoes become mushy, turn off the heat and allow it to cool down.Grind the mixture into chutney.Do not add water while grinding.
5. Tempering the chutney: Heat 1 tbsp coconut oil, Add mustard seeds, asafoetida powder,dried red chilies.Pour the tempering over chutney.
6. Spicy and tangy tomato chutney can be relished with Idlis, Dosa and Medu Vadas. It can be refrigerated in a air tight container and used for 2-3 days.

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Click here to watch recipe video