Sunday, June 20, 2010

Green Tomato Chuteny

I have been looking for green tomatoes all these years. Ours being a small town, the Farmer's market here is a tiny one. I was never able to get green tomatoes here.

Two months back I bought a membership to a farm co-operative located in some town nearby, which recently opened their store here. With one membership, you can buy a total of 120 pounds of organic veggies without paying a single penny over what you have paid for membership. Isn't that amazing? And yes the membership is dirt cheap. I am so happy this summer as I am getting fresh and luscious veggies. I go there every Saturday morning and get my week's stock of vegetables.

On my yesterday's trip I was very happy to see green tomatoes at the store and got a few of them. To my disbelief, some of them already started changing color by the time I was home. I was out for a long time and it was the crazy heat that was responsible for it. Thankfully it did spare a couple for my chutney. Huh...

I was planning to make this green tomato chutney for a while now. I always loved chutneys, especially the tangy ones. Mom used to make this chutney quite often and of course I follow her recipe.

Green Tomato Chutney

1. Cut 4 green tomatoes in big chunks and saute on a teaspoon of oil for a minute. I used 4 small tomatoes.
2. Lightly toast a teaspoon of sesame seeds, grind them to a coarse powder and set aside.
3. Grind together 4-5 green chillies, 1/2 tsp grated ginger and tomatoes into a paste.
4. Add a teaspoon of sugar, ground sesame seeds and salt, and pulse it a couple times.
5. Make tempering of 1 tsp oil, 1/4 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp asafetida and a pinch of turmeric. Pour this tempering on the ground mixture and mix well.

Add some cilantro if you like. Serve it as a side with rice or chapati, or slather on bread slices to make sandwiches.

2 comments:

  1. That looks simply wonderful! I have 2 green tomatoes and I was wondering what to do with them, now I know :)

    The farm cooperative sounds like a great idea.

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  2. Nupur: Yes, it tastes very good. We had it with dosas and it was pretty good. You can also substitute tomatillos for tomatoes.

    The farm co-op is indeed very good.

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