Spicy vibrant tomato sauce (South Indian style), coconut chutney to compliment fried eggs and bread
This sauce is inspired by a classical Southern Indian chutney, but is much more loose and runny. There are some chunks as well, but it's absolutely pourable, whereas chutney is rather scoopable.
I have to say, I was deeply satisfied with this breakfast that I made yesterday and I was not the only one. It was pretty spontaneous - I had made a fresh coconut chutney of a fresh coconut the day before. I learned how to break a coconut by the way - you just have to put it into a plastic bag and smash it a few times to a rock outside your house. A stone fence would also do great. I’ve read about a few other options, such as hammering, boiling and freezing too. But I didn’t have a hammer anywhere near and even though I tried to boil, it didn’t work. So I thought there’s no point to freeze it either, as I still have to beat it hard later - why not do it right away then, without previous preparation. At least I wouldn’t have to wait to move on.
But keep in mind first drizzle the water out - that can be done much more easily - just poke 3 wholes with a screwdriver (the whole spots have already been pre-made by nature). And hereby I have to thank the lovely Alpha Foodie for giving such a thorough tutorial for the whole shebang! Please visit her site here: How to open a coconut.
But there’s one more step to take after opening the nut, you also need to get rid of the hard shells and for that I found another handy site: Times of India, It turns out that boiling the halves for 5 minutes AFTER they’re already broken with a hammer or stone smashing like I did, really helps to get the hard shells off effortlessly.
How do you break a coconut by the way?
So, the recipe for the coconut chutney will be down below, but first I want to share the hero of this breakfast - the tomato sauce. It was actually also inspired by the idea of making chutney, but I wanted to create different textures and consistencies to my breakfast - the coconut chutney was already pretty solid. So the outcome was that 2 white elements - the egg white and coconut chutney were solid and then the egg yolk and tomato sauce were runny on the other hand. And bread is for binding everything together or being as a base for the whole thing.
I made the coconut chutney to yield 8 portions instead of standard 4 (the tomato sauce is rather 4). The reason being is that coconut is really intense and thick and you use it much less next to your main dish. But you can keep it in the fridge for days (I did 5 and maybe could have more).
SPICY TOMATO SAUCE RECIPE
Yields: as a condiment to 4 dishes
Time: 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
400 g ripe tomatoes (sliced)
8 dried curry leaves
1/4 teaspoon crushed dried green chili
1 small onion (chopped)
1 large clove garlic (crushed)
1 thumb size piece fresh ginger (peeled and grated)
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
4 tablespoons quality olive oil (yes, I know that Indian recipe requires other kinds of oils, but this time I saw the olive oil as an inevitable perfect compliment to this sauce and did not regret that swap - rules are meant to be broken after all, right?)
METHOD
Heat the oil to medium (not too heavy frying is recommendable with extra virgin olive oil).
Add green chili and curry leaves, sizzle them for 20 seconds.
Add onion, garlic, ginger and fry lightly for 2 minutes.
Add turmeric, chili, tomatoes and salt.
Turn the heat a bit more on, because the tomatoes would extract a lot of liquid and everything would just slowly stew otherwise. You need to evaporate the water a little.
Fry about 6 minutes.
Let it cool down.
Blend it by leaving it just a bit course, not overly smoothing it out (just as you can see on my photo up there.
Serve it right away, when still warmish or keep in fridge for at least 5 days.
COCONUT CHUTNEY RECIPE
To compliment the tomato sauce - they’re perfect together. Because of the intensity it yields twice as much as described above the recipes.
Yields: as a condiment to 8 dishes
Time: 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 fresh coconut grated - opened, shells removed and grated (read the instructions above the recipes!)
12 dried curry leaves
1 teaspoon dried chili
1 tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup / 2,4 dl water
METHOD
Blend everything into a grated cheese-like mixture and it’s ready!
By the way I just got a very handy egg / pancake / burger / or whatever-round-food pan. Check it out, I love the design and efficiency of this. Everything turns out even and plump and kind of sexy! If you want to see, how I make pancakes with burrata and cherry jam with the same pan, have a look at my last video below of the egg photos…
And as I really got a bit crazy with these cute round eggs lately, I also cooked a beautiful recipe by Nadiya Hussain (hopefully beloved of everyone, who’s familiar with her work) and this came out like that:
It’s from one of her books, more specifically this one: Nadiya's Family Favourites and I absolutely loved it. And kids loved it too!
CHECK OUT MY OTHER BREAKFAST IDEA HERE:
