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5 from 1 vote

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
Cook Time10 minutes
Total Time15 minutes
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: Andhra, Indian, South Indian, Telangana
Keyword: Chutney, Instant pickle, plant based, vegan, Vegetarian
Servings: 4 people
Author: Shravani Abhishek

Ingredients

  • 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

Instructions

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.

Notes

  • 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.