Tomato salsa is something that will get your mouth watering and build your appetite for the meal ahead. Salsa is integral to Mexican cuisine, often served with nachos / tortilla chips, as a condiment on eggs, inside quesadillas, or burritos. It adds the much needed flavour boost to any dish you eat it with. That means, nothing stops you from enjoying salsa with our own roti / chapati and subzi, like I often do!  This  adds some fun and zing to my otherwise boring lunch on some days.
The one thing that’ll be nice to have is a mortar and pestle to have that rough ground texture. A single pulse of 3-4 seconds in your food processor will be a good substitute though.
Tomato Salsa
Tomato salsa - Instant tomato chutney
Tomato Salsa made in a Mortar-Pestle is a quick 5 minute condiment that will add zing to any meal. Get the mouth watering!
Ingredients
- 2 tomatoes medium sized - roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic peeled
- 4 - 5 black pepper corns
- Pinch salt coarse
- 1 tbsp lemon juice freshly squeezed
- Pinch cayenne pepper
- coriander leaves Spring of - chopped
Instructions
- In a mortar, pound the pepper corns with garlic pearls and coarse salt till roughly ground.
- Add the chopped tomatoes (in batches if your mortar is smaller), crush them with a firm hand on the pestle.
- Don't attempt to squish them completely.
- Remove the crushed contents into a bowl, squeeze lemon juice, cayenne pepper (red chilli powder) and coriander leaves.
- Toss and check for salt.
- Serve chilled as a dip for your chips or toasted pita bread.
- You could also use this as a side to any regular Indian meal of roti and subzi.
Notes
You could drizzle extra virgin olive oil to increase the flavour quotient the (good) fat quotient of course!
Hey Nandita,Thanks for the U-tube link to that video. I happened to watch it on TV on the day of Holi, and man!! Is is well-made or what?! Hats off to the creative fellas behind it.A propos creative, I like the new header on your blog. That turnip/Shalgam looks very pleasing.
Love it Nandita. It sounds really refreshing and a great dip/spread for all sorts of things – like tortillas or a vegie burger relish. What i like about this is that you can adapt it to suit your own taste. Oh and BTW – I like your new look ;-))) LOL!!
Hi Nandita, I like the look of the Salsa…its interesting, I’ve never tried it with chapatis…must do that sometime.Like the new look of your site too.trupti
Hi Nandita. I have been visiting your site frequently over the past three weeks. I live in Delhi. I wanted to ask you if you have ever tried grating the tomatoes for this salsa? I have tried this especially for making a topping or dip for papads, and it really works well. I was surprised to see how well you can grate large firm tomatoes, and the skin also can be separated this way. I have seen people run tomatoes through a chilli mincer for a similar chutney as they call it here. People eat it with puris. I also want to tell you about a great beetroot chutney that I ate in a restaurant. I asked the chef about it and tried it out the next day. You have to cook chopped tender beetroot with a little water and cinammon sticks and grind it smooth with a dash of amchur, salt and a dash of sugar or gur. I thought I detected some black salt or chaat masala but I left it out of my recipe. You can use the water that you strain out to adjust the consistency. That is the gist of what I understood from his recipe. Cinammon gave such an unusual flavour to this lovely heartening chutney, that looks like a ruby red jam. I think it would be great with bread too.
Salsa and Chappathis!! Should try that combo soon…nice pics and great entry :)Shn
Hey girl, the salsa looks great… I make a similar salsa, but never tried to crush the tomatoes in the mortar… that is a great idea, crushing will let the flavors really blend.
Great looking salsa…it is easy breezy and always a hit when a few of us get together. I even carry it with baked roti-chips (yup, made from roti!) for picnics!
I love salsa…can literally taste that…looks great1
beautiful new look. love it.
This is a beautifully colored salsa. I love the versatility of tomato salsas and chutneys.
Thanks folks…for yoru compliments on the new design, I’m still in the process of finalising what suits the blog theme best so expect to see some more changesSig – I learnt the mortar pestle trick from a food show on DIscovery travel and living by Kylie Kwong Asian cooking. It tastes different than just tossing them together or chopping them.Namitha – Love your beetroot chutney, must be more like a Jam…ITC Kitchens of India has a plum and star anise jam that i love. I shall try the beetroot version soon…Can’t like your profile, says its private.Susan – thanks for visiting my blog
This salsa looks yumm….Nice photography
This salsa looks so inviting, never thought of trying salsa with chapatis.