I know you have tasted sun dried tomato pesto, but have you ever had a spicy, tangy tomato spread with your bread? I bet this recipe will blow your mind! This tomato chatni (aka tomato spread) is spicy, tangy, full of flavor and easy to make but super delicious!

I have used some special ingredients for this recipe, like whole mustard seeds and whole coriander seeds. You can always use Pach Phoron but I thought that mustard seed and coriander seed gives a really nice touch to tomato, so I skipped pach phoron for this recipe.

The first step is to boil the tomatoes in really hot water and peel the skins off. So I took a deep pan and boiled some water with a table spoon of salt. When water was boiling, I added washed tomatoes and let them cook until the skin starts to break. You don’t need to fully cook the tomatoes.

I drained the water and let the tomato cool for a bit, because they are too hot to touch. We have to peel the skin of the tomato so its a good idea to wait for a few minutes!

I have used the same pot where I boiled the tomatoes but I have removed all the water. I put mashed tomatoes there and let them reduce in volume by cooking in low to medium heat. At this point, the tomatoes contain lots of water, so you need to patiently wait until tomato mash becomes a thick tomato paste. After a few minutes when the tomato starts to look thicker, I turned of the heat and sat the tomato aside. If you leave the tomato in the stove, it gonna get burned at the bottom.

While tomatoes are getting cooked, I have prepared onions and garlic. You can chop them however you want.

I took a pan and heated 20ml Bangladeshi mustard oil. You can use any vegetable oil. When oil the heated, I added half a tea spoon of mustard seed and 1 table spoon of coriander seed and let them sizzle for a bit.

Then I have added dried chili and let them fry for a while until change color and become crispy.

Now its time to add the tomato paste to the onion and other spices. I have kept some skins as you can see in the picture, because I love them! Plus it gives a nice texture to the chatni.

As you can see, I did not reduce the water content fully of the tomato, because it would take a lot of time plus in the process of cooking with spices, the water content of tomato will reduce by its own!

In the photo, you can see lots of bubbles. It means tomatoes are getting cooked and releasing its water. Remember to keep the temperature of the stove low, because tomato tends to spill a lot. If you want, you can cover the pan with a lid. Don’t forget to stir it once in a while.

My tomatoes are releasing oil now, so it means it already cooked and there no more water left. You can take this out of stove right now, but I like my tomato chatni more colourful and roasted so I will keep them in stove for few more minutes.

It’s almost there. As you can see, the color of tomato is getting darker and it is releasing more oil. I kept on stirring continuously to prevent them from burning on the bottom.

So, its done (yeee!). I have served it on a bowl and had them with rice. But you can totally try it with Ruti (handmade flat bread) or tortilla.

Recipe: Tomato Chatni

Ingredients: Red Tomato – 7-8 pieces Onion – 1 medium Dry red chili – 4-6 pieces Garlic cloves – 4/5 pieces Red chili powder – 1tsp Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp Cumin powder – 1/2 tsp Coriander powder – 1/2 tsp Whole coriander seed – 1tsp (optional) Whole mustard seeds – 1tsp (optional) Mustard oil -20ml Salt to taste

Instruction: 1. Blanch the tomatoes in really hot water and peel the skins off. 2. Mash the tomatoes with a fork and continue to cook the tomato pulp to reduce to water content. 3. In a pan heat up mustard oil and add whole coriander, mustard seed and dry red chili. When they start to pop, add sliced garlic, onion and cook them until golden brown. 4. Now add tomato pulp to the pan and also add dry spices-turmeric, chili, coriander and cumin. 5. Continue to cook tomato until oil separates from tomato. Enjoy Tomato chatni with rice or bread.