Tomato Tokku - Tomato relish or pickle

TOMATO TOKKU

A dark night, poor lighting, potholes, a false step, all got her leg in a cast! Chitra Amma was away from the kitchen for few weeks. She’s back in action now and it’s certainly good to get back to blogging – so here is her next recipe! ~ Dibs

My friend’s daughter had a craving for Tomato Tokku. She remembered the tokku which she had tasted long back at her guardian’s place when she was working away from her home. It is a custom to fulfill all the cravings of an expectant mother so that she delivers a healthy happy baby. Tomato tokku is new to me, but any way I decided to give it a try. My friend’s daughter relished the tokku very much and here I am happy to share my recipe with all of you.

Ingredients
Finely chopped tomatoes - 6 (In case you are particular, you can immerse the tomatoes, boiling hot water for few minutes and remove the skin, before chopping them)

Til Oil (Indian Sesame Oil) – 1 ladle (about 6 -8 tablespoons)
Asafoetida – ¼ tsp
Mustard Seeds – ¼ tsp
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Salt – 1½ tsp
Sugar or jaggery - ½ tsp
Red chilly powder - 2 tsp (this gives a nice hot tokku. You can reduce the amount if you want it milder)
Dry roasted and powdered Fenugreek (Methi) seeds - 1tsp

Method
1. Heat til oil and add the asafoetida and mustard seeds.
2. When the seeds splutter, add tomato pieces, turmeric powder, salt and sugar.
3. Stir well and cook covered in low flame.
4. When the tomato becomes a pulp, add chilly powder, and cook without the lid.
5. Keep stirring now and then. Cook until the oil separates out from the pulp. This takes about 25 - 30 minutes.
6. Now, dry roast fenugreek seeds on a tava, and grind or pound into a fine powder.
7. Mix the fenugreek powder into the tokku. This step fills the kitchen with a lovely aroma!
8. Tokku is now ready. Store in a clean dry glass bottle.


Properly cooked tokku will stay for many days at room temperature – just like any other Indian pickle. If the oil is insufficient, or any moisture remains, the tokku will get spoiled. If you are unsure about your tokku, you can safely store it in the refrigerator, and use within a week.

This simple and zingy tokku livens up any meal. You can take it with rice and ghee, or along with chapattis, dosai, idli, or along with curd rice.

Omapodi ~ Crunchy Savory

Who doesn't like the crunchy, melt-in-the-mouth Omapodi. With just two main ingredients and a spice, you can't imagine how tasty this can turn out to be. Once you taste it, you can't stop munching them until you finish it off. During Diwali, this used to be one of the savories apart from the all-time favorite Pakoda. And invariably, its Omapodi dabba which gets emptied first. Its very easy to make. If you attempt to make in small measures, be warned that it will disappear before you finish making the last batch. I made with 2 cups of rice flour and must have got around 15 nos and believe me it was finished in a day. Two of our friends also helped us to some extent in that regard. Now to the recipe.

You will need

Rice flour - 1 cup (Fresh/Store bought)
Besan/Kadalamavu - 1 cup
Ajwain/Omam - 1 tblspn
Butter - 2 tblspn
Salt to taste
Water to make the dough
Oil to deep fry

If you are using store bought rice flour, you can increase the besan by 1/4 cup to get soft omapodis.

Soak ajwain in warm water for half an hour. Grind it into a paste. Add little water and strain the paste to discard the tiny ajwain. Keep the strained water aside. Measure rice flour and besan into a bowl. Add salt, butter and the omam water. Mix well. Add more water to make a soft,tight dough.

Heat oil in a kadai. When it is hot, with a murukku press and use the omapodi Achu ( one with small holes that is used to make Idiyappam too), press the dough into the oil. Start from the outer portion of the circle and move to the centre, while pressing the dough. Since it is thin, it gets fried faster. Turn them after half a minute. When the sizzling of oil around the omapodi is less, remove with a slotted spoon and drain on an absorbent paper. Cool and store in airtight container. It will stay crisp for weeks together, if at all it lasts that long.

The plate of crunchy Omapodis is on it way to EC's WYF:Fried Snacks event.

Chocolate Marble Chiffon

I've no idea what cakes I would like to bake, my mind is just hanging and running out of idea. Other than making ice cream, I feel myself have no mood to do anything (may be the weather is too hot). So, I decided to do something simple rather than complicated baking.

This the simple marble chiffon cake I've baked which is nothing special that had filled my mood as the texture is excellent. The bad thing is the surface got a tunnel which I've no idea why. How nice if it's a smooth surface and this could be the perfect baked chiffon.

This reminded me life is not perfect, it's the matter of how we value and appreciate everything we have at the moment.

Ingredients for 21cm chiffon pan:

Egg white mixture:
180g egg whites
90g caster sugar
10g corn flour

Egg yolk mixtures:
70g egg yolks
60g water
60g vegetable oil
70g + 10g plain flour
20g caster sugar
8g cocoa powder

1. Mix all the egg yolks, water, oil together until well combined. Add in the 70g of flour and the 20g of sugar, mix everything well combine and no lumps left.
2. Measure the egg yolk mixture and divide it into equal quantities of two portions in separate mixing bowl.
3. Mix 10g of the flour into a bowl of egg yolk mixture and mix 8g of cocoa powder into another bowl of egg yolk mixture.
4. Beat the egg whites in a clean large bowl until peak foam. Gradually add in sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Then finally add in corn flour. Make sure the corn flour mix well in the egg mixture. The egg whites mixture should be peak foam, smooth and shiny. Gently fold in half of the egg whites mixture into the cocoa egg yolks mixture and plain mixture accordingly until well combine. (Note: This stage took some times and patient and practice. Make sure all the egg whites mixture well combine with the egg yolks mixture without breaking the egg whites. Little egg whites left will cause a big hole in the cake during baking. And, over mixing will cause it hardly rise during the baking.)
5. Pour the well mix mixture into a 21cm chiffon cake tin and bake at a 170'C preheated oven for 50 - 55 minutes. After baked, let the baked cake turn upside down for cooling before unmold it. Enjoy this supper soft and fluffy chiffon cake!