Tomato Chutney Recipe (no coconut no onion no garlic) - Step by Step

Recipe to prepare South Indian tomato chutney (thakkali chutney) without onion, garlic, or coconut. This easy tomato chutney can be served with dosa, idli, pongal, chapati and most other breakfast dishes.

Recipes from grandmothers are always special. So when a friend of mine offered to send a coffee table cookbook based on a grandmom's recipes from Palakkad, I didn't have to think too much to accept it. I say we can never have old recipes to cherish and pass on, right?

This recipe is from this gorgeously simple cookbook called Pankajam's Cooking from the Heart, a compilation of her grandmother's recipes by Bharathi Ravi Prakash. The recipes are divided into various sections ranging from kuzhambu to podis to rice to chutneys to dessert. At first glance, I saw that most recipes were already ones I had received from my family members so this book may not be for you if you are particularly attached to your favourite paruppu urundai kuzhambu recipe or a Mysore rasam recipe in your repertoire. I also wish the chutney section had more recipes (it only has two). The bottom line is, this is a great book to add to your collection if you are new to South Indian cooking and want to learn, or you want to add some more traditional recipes to your collection. I for one am very happy with it and plan to try a lot more recipes in the coming months. Check out their Facebook page if you'd like more information or where to purchase the book.

As I was saying, this tomato chutney is super simple and when I read the recipe, I knew I should stick to it and try it out rather than adding a couple of cloves of garlic, however tempted I was to do so. I also found it very interesting that the only heat in this chutney comes from freshly ground black pepper and if you add enough, this creates a really nice flavour in the back of your mouth (weird, but true). But really the star addition in this tomato chutney recipe is the ghee. I don't know why I never tried this but cooking this in ghee or even adding some ghee to the chutney while it looks really elevates the taste.

Plain dosa with tomato chutney and coconut chutney

If you love chutney recipes, I'm sure you'd love this list of easy Indian chutneys that I compiled. My personal favourites are this onion tomato chutney, my mom's thick coconut chutney recipe, and this red coconut chutney we make for dosa and idli most mornings.

TOMATO CHUTNEY RECIPE

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Makes ~ 1.5 cups

INGREDIENTS:
3 cups of chopped, ripe tomatoes (about 2 large tomatoes)
1 tsp of freshly cracked black pepper
1/2 tsp of black mustard seeds
1 tsp of cumin seeds (jeera)
1 tbsp of ghee
A pinch of turmeric powder
4 tbsp of chopped, fresh coriander leaves (cilantro)
Salt to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Heat the ghee in pan (I used non-stick and it worked well) and add the mustard seeds. When they begin to pop, add the cumin seeds and let them sizzle and turn a shade darker.

2. Add the tomatoes and mix well to combine. I'd recommend chopping the tomatoes finer than you see in the picture below so that it cooks faster. Let the tomatoes cook until it starts to soften, stirring now and then.

3. Add 1/4 cup water to this and continue to cook on a low flame.

In about 4 mins or so, you'll find that the tomatoes start turning to a mush, the skin separating from the flesh. Most of the water would have evaporated by now too.

4. Add the turmeric powder and salt at this stage and mix well.

5. Then add the pepper powder and chopped coriander. Continue to cook for another 3-4 mins until the chutney becomes thicker and most of the water has evaporated.

You can cook it down further if you wish but I stopped at this stage since I was serving this tomato chutney with dosa.

All done! You can store thakkali chutney in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 4 days. Gently re-heat before using or you can even set it out for a while to come to room temperature before serving.

This tomato chutney tastes best with rava idli, plain dosa, wheat dosa, and plain idlis.