Tomato chutney is a typical side for traditional breakfast dishes like idli and dosa. It has a balanced blend of tartness and spiciness and would also taste amazing with instant dosa varieties like wheat dosa, rava dosa or neer dosa. The instant dosa typically would have unfermented batter and the tanginess of the tomato chutney would be an ideal combination for it.
This tomato chutney uses a blend of tomato and onion along with red chillies and fresh cilantro (coriander leaves). I use a couple of garlic cloves and small piece of ginger. Add a pinch of sugar to balance out the flavors and grind them all to get an amazing chutney. We usually use up any leftovers along with our lunch of dal and rice.
The color of the tomato chutney is from the tomato and the red chillies. Onion, cilantro and tamarind will affect the color. In one of my chutney trials, I added a large a handful of cilantro, because I love cilantro. The chutney tasted amazing but it had an unfortunate, murky, dark green color. So please keep that in mind while adding the ingredients.
Heat oil and roast the cut onion, ginger, garlic and red chillies till onion turn light brown. Remove and let it cool down.
Add a little more oil and add the tomatoes. When it turns soft, add a little cilantro and let it wilt and remove from fire. While the tomato is cooking, you can grind the onion etc. This first grinding helps in easily grinding the onion. Once you add the tomatoes, it might get a little watery and make it harder to grind.
Add to the ground onion and grind along with a pinch of sugar and little tamarind. Garnish with a little coriander leaves.
Tomato Chutney
Ingredients
- 1 large Onion, cut into chunks
- 2-3 Garlic cloves, sliced
- 1 small piece of ginger sliced
- 6-8 Dry red chillies, (See Notes)
- 4 large Tomatoes, cut into chunks
- A handful of fresh cilantro or coriander leaves
- ½ tsp Tamarind paste,
- ¼ tsp Sugar
- Salt to taste
- 1-2 tbsp Oil
Instructions
- Heat oil in a pan and the onion.
- After a minute, add garlic and ginger and saute more.
- Add the dry red chillies and saute till the onion turns light brown.
- Remove from the pan and let it cool down.
- In the same pan, add a little more oil and add the cut tomatoes.
- Add a little salt and let the tomatoes turn soft.
- Add a small handful of coriander leaves. You could increase the quantity of the fresh coriander leaves, but the color of the chutney might not remain red.
- Let the leaves wilt and switch off.
- Grind the onion, ginger, garlic and red chillies first.Once we add the tomatoes, it will be a little watery and might be harder to grind all the onion etc into a paste.
- Then add the tomatoes, coriander leaves, sugar, tamarind (optional) and the required salt to it and grind to a fine paste.
- Serve with your breakfast of the day.
Notes
- Dry red chillies are the way to go. You can reduce the heat my substituting some with Kashmiri red chillies which will give the color but not the heat. Instead of dry red chillies, you can add 1-2 teaspoons of red chili powder to the tomatoes at the end of the roasting process . Saute in low flame and switch off.