Tomato - Onion chutney - Grandmothers recipe

I made this yesterday and it was great success. Thought I would share it with you all. It is quick and eay to make and can be stored for upto a week easily in the fridge. taste great w/ bread, roti or even mixed w/ rice with a bit of ghee. So here goes


What you will need
Big onions - 5-6
Ripe red tomatoes - 3
Ginger - 2 inch piece grated finely
Red chillies - 6 (depending on how spicy you want it)
Dhaniya seeds
a little bit of channa dal
Jeera
A spoon of tamarind paste
Mustard seeds for tempering
Oil

What you do with it

Heat the oil in a kadai
Add channa dal, dhaniya seeds and jeera. Once it starts sputtering, add the onions. The onions can be cut in big pieces since they will be ground later on.
Once the onions turn golden brown, add the cut tomatoes and ginger. The juicier and riper the tomatoes, the better the chutney will taste.
Once the tomato starts to lose it shape, add the tamarind, salt to taste and cover and cook. Add oil as necessary.
Cook this way until the tomatoes lose their shape and is a fine paste thickeing slightly. Turn off the stove.

Let it cool a bit and then grind to a paste. I like to leave it with a little texture.

Now heat oil again and add the mustard seeds. Once they sputter, add this onion- tomato paste and fry until the oil separates.

Total preparation time - 5 mins
Total cooking time - 20 mins
Complexity - simple
Can be stored? - yes

I always have this chutney stored in the fridge! Let me know how you like it

Who am I?

Fifteen days since I last blogged! Maybe this is why I am not an Amitabh Bachchan – I just lack the discipline! The irony is that I really want to be. I would want to be – I would so like to be the kind of person who wakes up at the crack of the dawn and lives her life as per a pre planned super process flow. Instead I languish in bed until the last possible minute and then rush through my day.

Another mystery is this discrepancy between the work me and the real(?) me. I have been trying to figure it out since I realized at the tender age of 10 that I was more than one person. !8 years later – I am no closer to figuring it out. The work me is super efficient and planned. If I have a June 30^th deadline, I am normally finished atleast a few days in advance. I will start hyper ventilating if anything needs to be done at last possible minute. The other me? If I have guests coming over at 7 p.m. for dinner I open the fridge at 5 and take a call on whether to cook or order in. Needless the say the latter generally wins.

This isn’t all. I am super confident even a little (okay a lot) pushy at work – I didn’t get to the job I hold now without a little jostling – but at home I am a wimp. I admit it I am still scared of my parents and expectations of any and all kinds smother me. At work I don’t give a damn. At other times, I care, I care a lot. Now the couch psychologist in you might say, I obviously care more about my personal life than my career. Not completely true. I spend more hours at work than at home and truly love my job. I am pretty much on call 24/7 but don’t complain because – I repeat myself – I truly love my job.

Other differences – I hold a job which requires me to network and schmooze and generally spend most of my work day interacting with people – not a problem – I am a people person and an extrovert but when I get home – I go into social hibernation – me, my husband in a cocoon of nothingness!

So who am I? I don’t know – I am at work now so am in thinking mode! Once I get home, I will stir my pot of dinner and put it out of my mind. The other me doesn’t like to exercise her brains much you see!