Whenever there is a tomato season when tomatoes are available in abundant and cheap in the market, the first thing which comes to my mind is to make a Tomato Thokku. It is so easy to make and can be used as a spread, as a side dish and as a pickle.  It also goes very well with Idly/Dosa as a chutney. If cooked properly then we can use it for atleast 10 days.

This is a travel friendly dish too. Whenever I go for travel I make chapati and tomato thokku and I feel at home with homemade tomato thokku. Tomato Thokku goes well with Dosa, Chapati, Curd Rice and also with just simple plain rice. We can store this tomato thokku in an air-tight container and refrigerate it and also whenever we plan to do tomato rice, we just season and saute the onions and then add this yummy tomato thokku and prepare instant tomato rice.

INGREDIENTS
1 Kg Tomato
Tamarind 1 gooseberry size
1 tbsp Red Chili Powder
1 tsp Turmeric Powder
1 tbsp Grated Jaggery
1/2 tsp Fenugreek Powder
Salt to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Wash and pat dry the tomatoes and chop it to roughly small pieces. I used to make tomato thokku with the skin. When cooked the tomato skins will be visible. If you prefer to have a very nice paste of tomato thokku, then we should remove the tomato skin. To remove the tomato skin, add tomatoes to boiling water and cover it with a lid and then after 5 minutes, take out the tomatoes and peel the skin. In this recipe below, i cooked the tomato with skin.

Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds. When the mustards seeds starts to sputter, add curry leaves and saute it in low flame for half a minute.

Add chopped tomatoes to the pan along with turmeric powder, salt and red chilli powder and keep in medium flame to cook the tomatoes.

While the tomatoes start to cook, we get lots of juice from tomatoes and we need to keep the flame in medium and allow the full juice to get evaporated and the tomatoes to be cooked completely and becomes mushy like thokku. Add thick extract of tamarind and stir the mixture occasionally so that the thokku doesn’t get stuck to the bottom of the pan and also to make sure it is not burnt. Cook the thokku till the oil starts oozing out from the mixture and there is absolutely no juice. Usually it takes about 30 minutes for the complete tomato water to evaporate.

Finally add grated jaggery and fenugreek powder(Dry roast the fenugreek seeds and grind it to a nice powder in a mixer) and let the thokku cook for another couple of more minutes and remove from flame.

Cool the thokku and add it to the air-tight container and store it in refrigerator and enjoy the thokku. Tomato Thokku goes well with Dosa, Chapati, Curd Rice and also even with hot steaming rice.