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 thought we can never have enough old recipes to cherish and pass on, right? This recipe is from a 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. As I was saying, this South Indian tomato chutney is super simple and when I read the recipe, I knew I should stick to it and try it out exactly as described 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 tomato chutney in ghee or even adding some ghee to the chutney while it cooks really elevates the taste. 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. Step by Step Instructions to make South Indian Coconut Chutney:

  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 it 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 South Indian tomato chutney tastes best with rava idli, plain dosa, instant wheat dosa, and plain soft idli. For South Indian tomato chutney recipe in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Urdu, etc please use the Google translate button in the sidebar.