Food Tangents

Passport & Plate - Tomato Kasundi

India | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
1 ½ tablespoons black mustard seeds
1 ½ cups malt vinegar
¾ cup chopped fresh ginger
20 cloves garlic
20 fresh chillies (Green and red)
2kg ripe tomatoes (best if they are almost overripe)
1 ¼ cups vegetable oil
1 ½ tablespoons ground turmeric
4 tablespoons freshly ground cumin
2 tablespoons red chilli powder
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt

 

How to prepare this recipe
1.Soak the mustard seeds in the malt vinegar overnight.
2. In the morning, peel ginger and garlic, chop roughly. Add to mustard seed/malt vinegar mix and place in a blender, blending until no large chunks remain.
3.Cut chillies in half and remove seeds (surgical gloves recommended).
4. Peel tomatoes. The easiest way to peel tomatoes is to bring a large soup pot to the boil, turn off, put in tomatoes and leave until the skin splits. Remove from pot, put under cold water and remove skins.
5. Heat oil in a large, heavy saucepan until smoke forms. Let cool slightly, then add mustard seed paste (watch out, the mixture will foam up). Fry for one minute, or until foam subsides, add ground turmeric, cumin and chilli powder and fry, stirring for a few minutes.
6. Add tomatoes, chillies, sugar and salt. Simmer until tomatoes are reduced to a pulp, the water has evaporated and the oil starts to float on top, about 1.5 hours.
7. Adjust salt and sugar as desired.
8. Bottle and seal when cold. You can technically eat it right away but it is best when left for a week or two!

 

The story behind this recipe
For as long as I can remember, Tomato Kasundi has been a staple in our house; the red, spicy chutney that my mother keeps in every imaginable sized glass jars in our pantry and pulls out on special occasions and as Christmas gifts. Its sweet, mustardy taste makes it a great accompaniment to fish, however my favourite way to eat it is to lather it on crackers and cheese, adding a touch of the exotic to an otherwise standard snack, a touch of India to an otherwise white girl.
On my annual visit to my mother’s home, we will inevitably buy kilos of overripe tomatoes, pull out the tattered version of “the complete Asian cookbook” (dog-marked already to the page), start a pot of chai, and make a huge batch of Kasundi.
One of my favourite parts is frying the mustard seed. Mustard is quintessential to North and North-Eastern India.Its bright yellow flowers and pungent scent dominate the landscape there as well as the kitchen. It also dominates my childhood memories; the tiny black pods crackling and spluttering in ghee releasing their scent brings me back to my carefree, childhood days in the foothills of the Himalayas eating sickly-sweet jalebis with my Ama on the porch of our house in Missouri.
I always stand next to my mother when she starts frying the spices, letting the scent of fried turmeric and cumin mix with her smell of cardamom and ginger. There always comes that point where she gives me the same advice she has given me for the past 15 years: “The most important part of Indian cooking is learning to properly fry the spices, that’s where the flavour is.” I always nod and smile graciously, as though it were the first time she is telling me this.
Then comes my other favourite part. Enveloped by the sweet, acidic, mustardy smell of the Kasundi simmering I sit with her, drinking cups of sweet, milky chai and listening to story after story of monsoon nights and snow-capped peaks, old friends and wandering sadhus, and long walks through seas of waving yellow.