Having lived in Hyderabad for 12 years, my mother mastered all the andhra style pickles. Needless to say, I learnt the exact methods of Avakkai, tomato thokku, Inji thokku, mahai, gonkura pachadi etc from her.
I am posting two methods for the thokku. One the original long method and one simplified version for busy people. Both are tried and tested many times over. Follow the version that suits you.
Ingredients
- Tomato- 1 kg
- Tamarind – 1 orange sized ball
- Salt – 3 table spoons
- Red chilli powder – 1 cup
- Sesame oil – 1 cup
- Mustard seeds – 1 teaspoon.
Method
Original Andhra Style
- Wash and wipe the tomatoes dry. Cut each into 2 pieces and mix with salt in a large container. leave for 1 day.
- The next day, take out only the tomatoes on a plate, leaving the water behind.
- In this salt water soak the tamarind. Place the tomato plate and the container with soaked tamarind in the sun for two days.
- Grind the tomatoes and the tamarind to a smooth paste. Mix the red chilli powder and hing to this paste.
- Heat oil in a kadai on a medium flame.Add mustard seeds.
- When the mustard seeds crackle add the paste carefully and mix well.
- Cook on a low flame covering partially with a lid to avoid the spillage, stirring occasionally.
- This may take around 15 minutes. Once the thokku is thick and the oil float, take off the flame and leave to cool.
- Store in air tight containers in a fridge.
Easy method
- Wash and place the tomatoes in a microwave safe container.
- MW at 600 watts for 10 minutes. Allow to cool.
- Grind to a smooth paste and return to the MW container.
- MW at 600watts for 1/2 hour stirring once in 5 minutes.
- Store this paste in a freezer container and allow to freeze.
- You can prepare the thokku the day you want.You can also use this paste for other dishes when tomato is not available.
- Soak tamarind in 1/2 cup hot water. grind to a smooth paste.
- Mix salt, hing and red chilli powder to the tamarind paste.
- Thaw the tomato paste and mix with tamarind paste.
- Heat oil in a kadai, on a low flame, add mustard seeds.
- When they crackle add the paste and mix well.
- Continue following steps 7, 8 and 9 of the original method.
Shown below is the picture of pulikaichal, recipe already posted. Click here for the recipe.
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hi……
Both version of thokku are excellent,,,, enticing…really u r doing great job making girls like us beware of festivals,,1st time i celebrated varalakshmi viratham seeing ur blog,i prepared appam too, but came bad for me:(,, think i added more water..,,otherwise i will be posted that,,,,, so happy to see ur comment on my blog…..eagerly expecting ur tamil blog soon….. will try to take part into srijayanthi event…..
Sobila, find replies in your blog dear!
Nice dish of tomato with very less ingredients…..Thanks for sharing original Andhra style. Pulikaichal is also a fine recipe. Good day and Happy weekend :)
Thanks kajal! Happy weekend to you too!
Nice authentic recipes Latha. Thanks for sharing. Viji
Thanks viji!
I love the idea of leaving the tomatoes in the sun for two days. It’s like cooks in the American South hanging chowchow in an old pillowcase on the clothesline overnight so the bitter juices can drip out. We love tomatoes. I’ll try this.
Thanks Emily! I posted this after reading that the season is getting over in your blog! latha.
I am definitely going to make this when tomatoes are back in season. And I plan to make the long method. Thanks for sharing this Lakshmi.
Mouth watering Latha.
I just can’t resist it
Tomato thokku is mouth-watering.
Is there any specific reason for leaving the cut pieces for 1 day ? I have never done this…
Hi, Could you tell me how long the “long version” will stay outside the fridge? And do we use the “Bangalore Tomatoes” or the native ( Natti ) ones for this recipe?
Hi,
Thanks for all your recipes and I have tried almost 3 recipes from ur blog and have also left the feedback for all of them.
Tired this tomato pickle this weekend ..the taste was good..
What I saw noticed was for the first day the tomatoes were looking fresh and smelled good but after the first day, u have asked to seperate the tomatoes and the water and dry the tomates for extra 2 more days right…by the end of the second day itself the tomatoes started to give a pungent smell and white layer got formed on the tomatoes…is this ok?? or this is how it will become..or this can be avoided if u keep this in the fridge by the end of the day and take it out the next day to keep it in the sun?
Any suggestions for this ??
Thanks once again,
Sangeetha