Tomato Porar Chutney

I'd decided to make something with panch phoron after digging in and deciding to write about it.... So...

Here is something very easy (it took me around 15min). I made this yesterday night for dinner. Had it along with Begun Bhorta and chappati.

Although you can just chop the tomatoes and throw them in the pan, I like the slightly charred flavours that come with things cooked directly on a fire. Much as I would prefer wood, I had a gas oven at my disposal at 10 in the night when I decided to make this for dinner after playing with the cat.

I put a bit of wire mesh on the oven to char and cook, since it does not mess up my gas oven. You can see the tomatoes happily cooking here... It took five minutes. I did not have tongs (or chimtay as we say in Bengali) so I used chopsticks to turn the tomatoes over after the part on the fire was done.

While the tomatoes were cooking, I added the panch phoron to some smoking hot mustard oil.

Soon the tomatoes joined the party in the pan with  the panch phoron. Be careful not to burn the panch phoron. You can see the ideal colour of the spices in this photo.

Then I added a wee little bit of sugar. You could too, if you like a sweet and tangy chutney like me (although my origins are more bangal (east bengal) ghotis or people who origins lie in the western part of Bengal would prefer this).
  

Tada! I'd some warm comfort food (that was surprisingly healthy!) to eat for dinner.

Try this out and let me know how it turned out...