Tomato thokku

One vendor in the greens market here makes me wonder if she keeps the weighing scale for just having one.

She would weigh a kilo of tomato and load my bag. Later at home I would weigh the same and the ointer in my scale will wildly ride well over a kilo. So I end up making tomato soup and juice often. Making pickles and thokkus with tomato are a good idea if we are able to consume them. My husband does not take any pickle. I try not to keep left overs and end up eating my curd rice with the vegetable or the sambhar. So pickles, if made live in the bottles I have stored them for a long time in my home.

But sometimes the urge to make a thokku or pulikkachchal with tomatoes gets me and I make them too. Sometime ago I bought tomatoes just for making the spicy tomato jam which I tried with the recipe from Aparna. I used part of them in the jam and the rest I made the thokku. We kept it for over a week or so and had it with chappathis, dosais and idlis. I have mixed it in rice and relished the same.
It is a common recipe that many of us keep cooking from time to time. But it is indeed one simply delicious thokku.

Ingredients:

12 medium tomatoes (700 grams or little more)
1 small lemon size tamarind, soaked in little warm water.
12-15 dry red chillis (adjust to taste and spice level of chillis). Soak along with tamarind.
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds lightly roasted and powdered
2 teaspoons mustard seeds roasted and powdered
1/2 teaspoon asafoetida powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1 big ladle full (about 1/3 rd of a cup) Gingelly oil

Tempering:
1 tablespoon oil (from the above)
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
2 teaspoons, channa dhal
2 teaspoons urad dhal
about five full sprigs of curry leaves

Chop tomatoes and grind with the soaked tamarind, chilli mix to a semi thick pulp.
Mix the salt.
Heat oil for tempering in a heavy pan and add the mustard seeds. Once they crackle, add the channa dhal and a few seconds later the urad dhal. Add the curry leaves and pour the pulp in the pan.Add the turmeric powder and asafoetida powder.
On medium heat allow the pulp to reduce and thicken. Add the oil in instalments while stirring in order that the cooking mass does not scorch.
Cook well until raw taste subsides and the oil surfaces above the mass. Add the fenugreek powder and the mustard powder. Mix well and switch off the fire.
Allow to cool and store in bottles.
This thokku stays well for about six weeks provided it is stored well and handled carefully.