Tomato Coconut Chutney

For the last day of the marathon, I made another condiment, tomato coconut chutney. I saw this chutney on yesterday's Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khana Khazana. I tuned into the show just before it concluded and he had a South Indian specials and this tomato thokku (as he called it) was part of the menu. I usually make tomato chutney with peanuts and/or sesame seeds but never with coconut. I don’t have any fresh coconut or frozen coconut but lots and lots of desiccated coconut. I don’t even remember why I bought it. I thought of using it all up and decided to substitute fresh coconut with the desiccated coconut and made this chutney. I was not sure how it would taste and to my surprise, it turned out pretty good. I modified the recipe a little to suite my taste buds.

Before getting to the recipe, let me recap the recipes I have posted thus far for this marathon. For this marathon, I chose to do two themes; cooking with 5 or less ingredients and condiments. Here is the list of recipes.

Theme: Cooking with 5 or less ingredients
Day 1 - Zucchini Rice
Day 2 - Microwave Cooking: Kalakand
Day 3 - Dondakaya Perugu Pachadi ~ Ivy Gourd in Mustard Yogurt Dressing
Day 4 - Chickpeas Salad

Theme: Condiments
Day 5 - Carrot Cauliflower Pachadi
Day 6 - Coconut Garlic Powder
Day 7 - Tomato Coconut Chutney

Adapted from: Sanjeev Kapoor
Total Time: 15 minutes (excludes cooling time)
Preparation: 5 - 7 minutes
Cooking Time: 8 - 10 minutes
Serves: 2-4

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. Oil
• ½ tsp. Mustard Seeds
• ½ tsp. Cumin Seeds
• ½ tsp. Urad Dal
• 5-6 Curry Leaves
• 3 Dry Red Chilies (each 2 – 2 ½“long and adjust to heat tolerance level)
• Turmeric
• 1 ½ tbsp. Chopped Ginger
• 2 Garlic Cloves
• 2 medium Tomatoes or 1 cup (heaped) chopped Tomatoes
• 1 tsp. Salt (adjust to taste)
• 2 tbsp. chopped Cilantro
• 3 tbsp. fresh or frozen grated Coconut (I had neither and used dry desiccated coconut)

Preparation:

• Take a pan and heat oil in it. When the oil is hot, add the seeds and let them pop.
• Add curry leaves, dry chilies and let them roast. Add turmeric.
• Remove pan from the stove, take 1 or 2 tsps oil from the pan and keep it aside in a bowl. Also keep aside few seeds and couple of curry leaves from the pan.   This step is to skip he tadka later.  If one wishes, they can skip this step and do the tadka again.
• Put the pan back on the stove. Add ginger, garlic and sauté for a few seconds.
• Add tomatoes, salt and mix well. Cover the pan and cook until tomatoes are mushy. This should take about 3-5 minutes.
• Add cilantro, mix well and turn off the heat.
• Add grated coconut, mix well and let the mixture cool.
• Take the mixture into a blender jar and grind it to paste. You may not need additional  water as tomatoes release lot of juices when cooking. But, if required, do add some water to grind the chutney.
• Transfer to a serving bowl, add the tadka.
• Serve it idli, dosa or your favorite tiffin. Served mine with rice.

This day in 2008: Orange Basundi

Event Entries: This is my entry to Srivalli's Condiment Mela