Tomato Thokku

Tomatoes hit a low price very recently and I took advantage of the situation. How? I got myself 2 Kgs of Natti Tomatoes. Now that I had them, I had just two things to make out of them.

Making Tomato Sauce and Tomato Thokku at home has always been on my to-do list. Tomato Sauce is still on the plans, but I got cracking with Tomato Thokku.

I remember tasting this particular dish from the tiffin dabbas of my classmates at school and the taste still lingers on. This dish is quite popular in the state of Tamil Nadu. I did ask around a few on how to go about this dish and a bit of google search and I have made the simplest version of tomato thokku and sharing the same here.

The flexibility this dish carry's along with it, is simply amazing. You can make it spicy, tangy, sweet (with a bit of jaggery), or even give it a flavour of garlic and then you can have variations in its texture too. You can either prepare the dish with pureed tomatoes or with  bite size chunks. There's some more, with or without skin, with or without the tomato juice. I told you, this dish can be customized in any manner that you wish.

Personally I believe the juice that oozes out adds on the flavour and taste to the dish.The texture is somewhere between a chutney and pickle in my opinion. Its good to go along with hot steaming rice, rotis, chappathis, (Indian flatbread), Idlis and Dosas.

Ingredients
500 gms                              Tomato
2 Tsp                                  Mustard
2 Tsp                                  Fenugreek Seeds
2 Tbsp                                Oil
1 strand                              Curry Leaves
Chilli powder                      (As per your taste)
Salt                                    (As per your taste)

My way of Making 
1. Chop the tomatoes into small bite sized cubes and keep aside.
2. Heat a kadai or heavy bottom pan with some oil. Once hot let the mustard seeds crackle. Add on the fenugreek seeds and curry leaves.
3. Saute for few seconds.
4. Add on the tomatoes and let them cook covered. Mix well with required Chilli powder and Salt.
5. Check for the water content (that the tomatoes let out).
6. See to that the dish does not burn. Keep stirring once every ten minutes.
7. Check for the thickness of the gravy after about 20 minutes.
8. If thick enough, cook for about ten minutes without lid and stir it once more time.
9. Once cooled store in air tight containers under refrigeration.

Notes
1. Never use an aluminium pan or kadai when cooking with tomatoes.
2. Always use a dry spoon to dish out some thokku.