Sweet and Spicy Tomato Chutney

Aromatic and tangy, with juicy chunks of simmered ripe tomato and a distinctive earthy, minerally aroma from fresh curry leaves, this thick tomato chutney is a condiment I always keep on hand to serve with biriyani, rice, dal, grilled chicken, and more. In South Asia, chutneys are often made very spicy so that a tablespoon or two per person is sufficient to add welcome heat to a meal. Rather than being added to dishes, it's on the table with most meals, so diners can help themselves to more if they like. 

My favorite style of tomato chutney is Hyderabadi tomato-curry leaf chutney. I was first introduced to it when I was 14 years old, after my family moved back to Hyderabad, India from Canada for my father’s job. I had never been to this historically Muslim city in the northern tip of south India before, and I was a bit of a foreigner with my Canadian accent. Still, a Hyderabadi Muslim girl, Ayesha, befriended me at school. We ate lunch together every day sitting cross legged on the playground. While I unpacked my sandwich, Ayesha opened her tiffin box filled with a traditional Muslim school lunch—shami kebabs, chapatis, a sauced vegetable dish, and tomato–curry leaf chutney. The deep red condiment with its green flecks of chiles and curry leaves was intoxicatingly aromatic. 

While I never got to try Ayesha’s chutney, I’d watch her enjoy the fragrant condiment, picking out the leaves one by one and leaving them on the ground beside her lunchbox. Every time we got up to go back to class I was amused by the circle of leaves she always left behind. I thought it was a shame that she never ate the chutney’s curry leaves, which gave it a distinctive aroma and flavor. I loved the smell of curry leaves and enjoyed them in other dishes that my mother cooked, like gajarachi koshimbir, carrot slaw with mustard seeds and curry leaves.

It wasn’t until several years after high school that I finally tasted Hyderabadi-style tomato–curry leaf chutney, and it was everything I had dreamed it would be. Tomato–curry leaf chutney is frequently seen on a Hyderabadi Muslim plate, often alongside chapatis, dal, rice, meat, and vegetables. Hyderabad's rich history and the influence of both Northern Indian and Southern Indian cuisines is reflected in its own unique cuisine.

Hyderabadi’s cuisine features dishes like kebabs and biryani, and ingredients like saffron, pistachio, and rose water, thanks to its Qutb–Shahi rulers, with roots in Turkey and Persia, who came to Southern India from the north of the country. Ingredients such as curry leaves, tamarind, and rice, which are native to Southern India, are also enjoyed in Hyderabad. And there are ingredients that came to India from the Americas via Portuguese explorers—chiles, tomatoes, and potatoes. All these ingredients, over generations, created a globally influenced cuisine unique to Hyderabad, and this influence is reflected in the city’s tomato–curry leaf chutney.

As an adult, I learned how to make the chutney myself from Bilkees Latif’s cookbook, The Essential Andhra Cookbook (part of the same Penguin series as my The Essential Marathi Cookbook). By this time, I was living in the U.S. and cooking for a living. With my professional culinary knowledge, I played with Latif’s recipe to make it my own and created a quick, easy version. Here are a few tips for how to make my tomato–curry leaf chutney at home.

Tips for Making My Tomato–Curry Leaf Chutney

Use plenty of fresh curry leaves and add them at different stages. To showcase my deep love for curry leaves, I call for 15 whole curry leaves—that’s more than Latif’s recipe and most other recipes call for in this style of chutney. It’s important to use fresh curry leaves, not dried, because dried leaves just don’t have the same intense flavor as the fresh do. Sautéing about half of the curry leaves with the other aromatics at the start of the recipe, then adding the remaining curry leaves after the tomatoes are finished cooking, intensifies the curry leaf flavor in the chutney.

While the tomatoes, chiles, curry leaves, mustard seeds, and asafoetida give the chutney more than enough flavor, I love to add ginger and garlic for even more savory flavor to balance the sweet stewed tomatoes. 

Add asafoetida for assertive flavor. Asafoetida is a gum resin that drips off the roots of an herb called ferula asafoetida, a central Asian plant in the celery family. It is gathered and then ground into a powder. Nuggets of it used to be left in sacks of grain because bugs stayed away from its strong aroma. Cooks in India learned that its strong onion-garlic smell and flavor was a welcome addition in many dishes. In the Indian state of Maharashtra, where my family is from, asafoetida-mustard-turmeric is often considered the “holy trinity” of seasonings. My father didn't like asafoetida’s pungent aroma, so my mother never cooked with it when I was growing up. But as an adult I’ve grown to love its flavor and always use it when I make a mustard seed seasoning, like I do here in my tomato–curry leaf chutney.

Have your spices measured and ready before cooking. Heating the oil and cooking the spices and aromatics happens very quickly in this recipe, within minutes. Opening multiple jars of spices and measuring them out at the stove or even having many small bowls of spices ready to add to the pot, can be time-consuming and cumbersome, and lead to the oil burning. To ensure you don’t burn the spices or overheat the oil, you want the spices to be ready to add before you start heating it. I like to use an Indian spice box, and I recommend having one if you plan to make Indian recipes often. With the spice box, small portions of frequently used spices are at the ready, and the box can be opened for easy access while you wait for the oil to heat. Since the box only holds about a week’s worth of spices, they stay fresh but can be replenished when needed from the pantry. 

If you do not have a spice box, don’t worry. There’s an easy solution: Measure out your spices onto two plates and keep them by the stove. On one plate, put mustard seeds, turmeric, and asafoetida, about an inch apart; on the second, place the grated garlic and ginger, sliced chiles/chili powder, and seven curry leaves, also one inch apart. This way, when it's time to add each ingredient, it'll be ready to go. 

Use in-season tomatoes. The flavor of sweet, in-season tomatoes is incomparable, and I recommend using them here. Cooking the tomatoes down into a jammy mixture further sweetens their flavor to contrast the spices, aromatics, and fresh chiles. The result is a tomato chutney that is sweet, savory, and spicy.

How to Serve Tomato–Curry Leaf Chutney

You can of course serve this chutney with Hyderabadi dishes like biryani or baghara baingan (Indian eggplant in a rich cashew nut and spice sauce) or dishes from other parts of India such as hot white rice, chapatis, sautéed vegetables, and dal. But it’s also great as a burger topping, paired with grilled chicken, or added to a pasta sauce. I enjoy it dolloped on goat cheese and a cracker, with a bit of quince paste for contrast.