This is another simple and basic South Indian chutney to accompany Dosas and Idlis. In fact it’s the first chutney you should know when cooking South Indian food and my MIL taught it to me almost the week we got married. Along with AK’s favourite Red Chutney. They’re so incredibly quick and yummy!
Here’s what I used:
1 smallish-medium coconut, de-husked
3 green chillies
1″ piece of fresh ginger
2 tbsp roasted chana dal (also called chutney dal) – you can even use roasted (preferably unsalted) gram
1 tsp salt
some water to thin the chutney
For the tempering:
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil (depending on how healthy you’re feeling!)
1 tsp black mustard seeds
3-4 stalks curry leaves
2 whole dried red chillies
Pinch of hing/ asafoetida
Here’s how I made it:
Here’s the coconut being cracked open with AK’s hammer. Frankly, I haven’t gotten the hang of it yet. I always manage to scrape myself while extracting the coconut from the hard shell, each time!
Then I scooped out the flesh and cut it into manageable pieces, straight into the grinder. This scooping out stage is where I do most damage to my poor fingers!
I put in the ginger and green chillies…
The dal…
And then pulsed it in the grinder for a few minutes till broken up nicely. It won’t grind very fine without the addition of any liquid, and we don’t want it very paste-y anyway.
Added the salt…
And a little bit of water (begin with 1/4 cup and see if you need more), just to allow it to grind better and come together…
You can add as much water as you like to make it as thick or as watery as you like. I don’t like to add to much, because I like this consistency…
Slightly grainy, with texture, but still holding together…
Now, for the tempering… I heated the oil on high heat in my small tadka vessel… And added the mustard seeds to it…
Then the red chillies, broken in half…
I washed the curry stalks and took the leaves, discarding the stalks. This needs to be done quickly as the mustard seeds will start crackling any second! Here are the whole stalks…
As soon as the mustard seeds started crackling furiously, I threw in the leaves, added the asafoetida and turned off the heat. The leaves sputter like crazy and the oil starts jumping about the kitchen too, so you need to watch out here! Can you see the oil splattering?!
I carefully added this to the chutney…
Then I put a heaped spatula of the chutney back in the tempering vessel, stirred it around and added it to the chutney. Just to get every little spot of tadka into the chutney. It’s important to stir the tadka into the chutney properly else the tadka just floats on top and the flavour/effect isn’t uniform!
These 2 steps cause the chutney to splatter so be careful. Tadka is definitely not child’s play!
And we’re done!!
Happiness! The simplicity of a dosa & chutney for lunch is incredibly satisfying! And for a “Northie” like me, it spells accomplishment!