Nepali Tomato Achar Recipe
A spicy tomato sauce that is often served with dal baht in Nepal. Kind of like a Nepali salsa.
Equipment
- Mortar and Pestle
- Small Sauce Pan
- Small Fry Pan
Ingredients
- 7 small tomatoes (plum sized)
- ½ cup water
- 4 whole dried red chilies
- 1 tsp mustard oil
- ½ tsp salt
- 3 cloves garlic
- ½ tsp timor powder (Szechuan powder)
Instructions
- Add 7 small whole tomatoes to a sauce pan along with ½ cup of water, and cook on high heat. The tomatoes will cook for a total of 20 minutes.
- Once the tomatoes have been cooking for 5 minutes, rotate the tomatoes so that the tops are on the bottom. This allows them to cook evenly.
- When they have cooked a total of 10 minutes (5 minutes after rotating), begin to mush the tomatoes with a spoon so that they become a sauce. Stir every couple of minutes to prevent them from sticking to the pan.
- Once they have been cooking for 15 minutes all together (5 minutes after mushing), turn the heat down to low and let simmer for the remaining 5 minutes.
- When they have cooked 20 minutes total, remove from the heat and set them aside. Let them cool down to room temperature (about an hour).
- While the tomatoes are cooling, you can prepare your spices. In a small fry pan, add 1 tsp of mustard oil and heat it over high heat. Once it’s hot, add the 4 whole dried chilies (remove the stems first). Fry for 15-20 seconds.
- Once cooled, put the chilies into the mortar and grind to a fine paste.
- Next, add the 3 cloves of garlic to the mortar and grind to a fine paste with the chilies.
- Add the salt and timor powder and mix it into the garlic/chili paste.
- When the tomatoes have cooled, mush them up by hand and pull the tomato skins out. Put all of the tomato skins into the mortar and leave the sauce part of the tomato in a separate bowl.
- Grind up the tomato skins until they become a paste with the other items in the grinder. There should be no large chunks.
- Once everything is ground up, combine the paste with the cooled tomato sauce. Stir it together with a spoon.
- Serve cold (or room temperature) with dal baht.
Notes
This dish is very spicy. If you'd like to make it less spicy, use two chilies instead of four.
The serving size is based on if each person took about 1-2 tbsp with their meal. If you only use a little bit each, it can serve a lot more people.