The Recipe Room

Chutneys are a clever and delectable way to consume your daily intake of fruits and veggies. You can use them in all sorts of dishes to jazz them up or create an interesting twist on the flavours, or simply enjoy on top of  a hunk of bread with a side of cheese.

 

I suggest you try my recipe for tomato chutney, as it is a very versatile chutney that goes well with rice and with tandoori chicken kebabs. This is a great recipe for the summer when tomatoes are in season.

Ingredients:

• ¼ teaspoons mustard seeds
• 2 red chilli peppers, whole
• ¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon Channa Dal nuts
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 teaspoons ginger powder
• 2 green chilli peppers, chopped
• 1 teaspoon cashew nuts, chopped
• 10 large, fresh tomatoes, chopped into 2 cm by 2 cm cubes
• 4 curry leaves
• Pinch of salt
• Vegetable oil

Preparation Method:

1. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan.
2. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Be careful because they pop, and you don’t  want to get burned.
3. Add the red chillies and fry them for 20 seconds. Since they are whole, the seeds won’t come out of the pepper, and so the chutney won’t be too hot.
4. Fry the cumin seeds.
5. Now add the Channa Dal and fry for 30 seconds.
6. Slowly add the onion and garlic. Add a pinch of salt so that the onion “sweats” a little. Cook this for about 4 minutes until the garlic and onions are softer.
7. Add the ginger powder. It should sizzle in the pan.
8. Add the green chilli peppers.
9. Chop the cashew nuts (but not too small as we’re going to put this all in the blender anyway) and put them in the pan.
10. Add in the tomatoes and curry leaves. You do not need to chop the curry leaves.
11. Cover the pot and let it simmer for an hour on a very low heat. You should check it every so often and slowly stir it. You can actually let this simmer for up to 2 hours, and it will be even tastier.
12. When finished, pour everything into the blender for 30 seconds. You do not want to blend for much longer as you want there to be some chunks of whole tomato left.
13. Return to the pot and stir slowly. Add salt to taste.
14. Serve on bread with cheese or as part of a meat dish. You could also store it in glass jars for future use.

Takes: 2 hours
Makes: Enough for 10 servings

Tags: cashews, Chana Daal, chilli peppers, chutney, cumin, curry leaves, garlic, ginger powder, Indian food, mustard seeds, onion, spicy tomato chutney, tomatoes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, 3 July, 2012 at 10:29 pm by Jay Ahmed and is filed under Starters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed RSS 2.0. You can leave a comment, or make a trackback from your own blog.