BACHALI AAKU KADALA THOKKU
An instant flavorful chutney made of malabar spinach stalks and spices. Makes a great accompaniment with any meal.
Prep Time5 minutes mins
Cook Time10 minutes mins
Total Time15 minutes mins
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: Andhra, Indian, South Indian, Telangana
Keyword: Chutney, Instant pickle, plant based, vegan, Vegetarian
Servings: 4 people
Author: Shravani Abhishek
- 1 cup Malabar spinach stalks
- ¼ cup Sesame seeds
- 5 Garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp Coriander seeds
- 1 tsp Cumin seeds
- 4 Green chillies
- ¼ cup Tamarind
- 2 tbsp Jaggery optional
- Salt to taste
- 3 tbsp Oil
Tempering
- 2 tbsp Oil
- 1 tsp Mustard seeds
- 1 tsp Cumin seeds
- 1 sprig curry leaves
Frying the thokku ingredients
Wash and chop the malabar spinach stalks to ½inch pieces, wash them again and place them in a strainer.
Heat a pan, add oil, once it's hot add cumin seeds, coriander seeds, garlic cloves, slit green chillies, sesame seeds, tamarind petals and fry until the garlic turns golden brown.
Now add in chopped malabar spinach stalks, and fry until they turn tender. This may take around 5 minutes on medium heat.
Add in salt to taste and cook for 2 more minutes.
Cool the fried stalks and spices and later transfer them to a mortar pestle and pound them by hand or just coarsely grind them in a blender.
Taste and adjust the salt.
Transfer the thokku/chutney to a bowl and keep aside until we make a tempering.
Tempering
Heat a small tadka pan and add oil, once it's hot add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves.
Fry until the curry leaves turns crisp.
Add the sizzling hot tempering to the pounded thokku/chutney and serve with rice, flatbreads, or with savory breakfasts.
- You can also add leaves along with stalks, as I use the leaves in making dal stalks get used in making chutneys.
- Chana dal, urad dal also can be added while roasting the chutney ingredients to add more nutty taste and additional protein.
- Tempering is also optional.
- This stays good for a day at room temperature and upto a week in refrigerator.
- Although traditionally we use garlic in thokku, you can omit if you want to make a garlic-free recipe and instead use hing/asafoetida in both roasting the veggies and in the tempering.