R081Moru Curry
Tempered buttermilk curry with ground coconut
Recipes › Curries, Pulissery and the Sour Family
R088
Thakkali Curry
Tomato curry with shallots, coconut milk and mustard
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
The re-engineeringThick first-extraction coconut milk replaced with 150 ml of second extraction, which takes the saturated fat from about 8 g a portion to 4.4 g; and the sweetness that usually comes from sugar comes instead from 100 g of shallots cooked down slowly.
Tomato is a latecomer to Kerala. It is absent from the classical sadya and from a Kottayam kudampuli fish curry, and its presence in a "traditional" Kerala recipe is a reliable dating marker — it arrived with the Portuguese and took centuries to be admitted to everyday cooking. This dish is therefore modern by Kerala's standards and entirely at home now: a quick sour curry for a night when there is nothing in the house, at 104 kcal a portion, built on the fruit's own acidity rather than on tamarind or curd.
Before you start: Have the second-extraction coconut milk ready and set aside away from the hob. It goes in at the end, off a rolling boil, and there is no time to make it then.
Thakkali Curry
Active 15 minutes Total 30 minutes
Scale
4 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- ✓8 g (1½ tsp) coconut oil
- ✓1.5 g (⅓ tsp) mustard seed
- ✓0.5 g (⅛ tsp) fenugreek seed
- ✓2 dried red chillies, broken
- ✓3 g (1 sprig) curry leaves
- ✓100 g (about 10) shallots, thinly sliced
- ✓10 g (about 3 cloves) garlic, sliced
- ✓10 g (a 2 cm piece) ginger, finely chopped
- ✓10 g (about 2) green chillies, slit
- ✓3 g (1½ tsp) ground coriander
- ✓2 g (1 tsp) Kashmiri chilli powder
- ✓1.5 g (¾ tsp) ground turmeric
- ✓500 g (about 5) ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
- ✓3 g (½ tsp) M07 the 70:30 salt
- ✓150 ml second-extraction coconut milk (M08)
- ✓100 ml water
Allergens: Mustard.
Equipment: Heavy 2-litre pan, non-reactive. Substitute: a manchatti is ideal; avoid bare cast iron and aluminium, which react with tomato acid and dull both flavour and colour.
Per serving (estimated)
| Energy | 104 kcal |
| Protein | 2.7 g |
| Fibre | 3.5 g |
| Net carbohydrate | 9.5 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 13.0 g |
| Sugars | 6.0 g |
| Fat | 5.7 g |
| Saturated fat | 4.4 g |
| Sodium | 220 mg |
From ICMR-NIN IFCT 2017 and USDA FoodData Central. Per-serving figures stay the same when you scale.
Method — tap a step to mark it done, tap a time to start a timer
- Heat the coconut oil in the pan over a medium-high flame until a mustard seed dropped in circles and pops within 2 seconds. Add the mustard seed and cover for the 10–15 seconds it takes to finish popping.
- Add the fenugreek and the broken chillies and stir 10–15 seconds only, then the curry leaves for 10–15 seconds until brittle.
- Add the shallots with a pinch of the salt and cook on a medium-low flame, stirring every minute, until they have collapsed, lost their water and turned an even light gold, . This is where the sweetness comes from, and it cannot be hurried without losing it.
- Add the garlic, ginger and green chilli and cook until the raw garlic smell has lifted and the mixture smells sweet, 90 seconds to .
- Add the coriander, chilli powder and turmeric and stir constantly for 20–30 seconds only, until the powders darken by a shade and the dusty raw smell goes. Add a tablespoon of water if anything catches. Turmeric turns bitter within a minute at this heat.
- Add the tomatoes, the rest of the salt and the 100 ml water. Bring to a simmer, then cover and cook , stirring twice, until the tomatoes have broken down completely, the mass has darkened from bright red to brick, and a thin rim of oil shows at the edge of the pan. That rim is the cue.
- Take the pan off the heat and stir in the second coconut milk. Second extraction carries about a tenth of first milk's fat and will tolerate the barest warmth, so if it needs it, return it to the lowest flame for only, swirling the pan rather than stirring, until warmed through. Do not boil it.
- Rest and serve. Like most Kerala curries it is better after an hour and very good the next day.
Why this worksSlow-cooked shallots supply what sugar would: their fructans hydrolyse and caramelise into a sweetness that balances the tomato's citric and malic acid, so the curry tastes rounded without any added sweetener. The second-extraction coconut milk then adds body at a tenth of first milk's fat, and holding so little fat it has far less emulsion to break — which makes this the most forgiving coconut-milk curry in the book.
Sourcing note
This dish is only as good as the tomatoes, and out of season the best available option is usually 400 g of tinned chopped tomatoes plus 150 g of fresh — the tinned fruit is picked ripe and carries more acid and more body than a pale winter tomato. Check the tin for added salt and count it: many carry 200 mg of sodium per 100 g. For the coconut milk, M08's second extraction is the target; from a tin, dilute full-fat coconut milk 1:1.5 with water. Kashmiri chilli powder gives the colour without much heat; ordinary chilli powder at 1 g will be hotter and paler.
If you are watching…
Blood sugar: 9.5 g of net carbohydrate and 3.5 g of fibre a portion. Negligible on its own, and the tomato acid contributes to the same effect the introduction to this chapter describes.
Blood pressure: 220 mg a portion, and about 15 mg with the M07 left out, which the tomato's acidity makes genuinely possible. If you use tinned tomatoes, read the label first — 400 g of a salted tin can carry 800 mg on its own and would double this figure.
Cholesterol: 4.4 g of saturated fat a portion, of which about 2.7 g is the coconut milk and 1.6 g the coconut oil. Made with first-extraction milk, as most recipes specify, this dish would carry about 8 g. Swap the frying oil to gingelly for about 3.0 g total.
Swap it
Second coconut milk → first extraction, 80 ml. Richer, rounder, and saturated fat rises to about 7 g a portion. Add it strictly off the heat.
Second coconut milk → 20 g cashews blended with 130 ml water. Comparable body, about 2.5 g of saturated fat a portion, more monounsaturated fat, and a sweeter finish. (Allergen: this swap introduces tree nuts (cashew).)
Tomatoes → 400 g tomato plus 150 g ripe mango. Sweeter and more perfumed; sugars rise to about 9 g a portion.
Add 2 hard-boiled eggs, halved, at step 8 → protein rises from 2.7 g to about 6.1 g a portion and the curry becomes a meal rather than a side. (Allergen: this swap introduces egg.)
Scale it
Cook 200 g of shallots in a wide pan or in two batches; crowded, they steam instead of caramelising and the curry loses its sweetness.
Make ahead · store · freeze
Everything up to the end of step 6 can be made two days ahead and the coconut milk added on the day, which is the best way to handle this. Fridge 3 days, covered, non-metal. Freeze 2 months — freeze the base without the coconut milk, which separates on thawing, and finish it fresh. Reheat the base freely; add or warm the coconut milk only at the very end and never at a boil.
Leftovers
Reduce it hard for five minutes and it becomes a thick sauce for eggs or fish. Or thin it with 200 ml of water and a handful of chopped cheera for a fast soup.
Troubleshooting
Sharp and raw-tasting: the tomatoes were not cooked down far enough at step 6, or the shallots were rushed at step 3. Both stages are about losing rawness and neither can be shortened.
Split, oily, with grainy white specks: the coconut milk boiled. Second extraction is forgiving but not immune. Off the heat.
Bitter: the turmeric or the fenugreek burnt. Twenty to thirty seconds for the powders, ten to fifteen for the fenugreek.
Metallic, with a dull brownish colour: the pan reacted with the tomato acid. Use clay, stainless steel or enamel.
Serve with
R015 Matta Rice, Properly Cooked · R017 Ghee Rice, Reworked · R022 Millet Upma · M08 Coconut Milk, Three Extractions
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