You make salsa, I make chutney!

The other day I picked up some tomatillos from the store with the intention of making some fresh salsa verde. Today I thought why not make some good old chutney with it instead? I usually make a chutney with tomatoes and peanuts that turns out really tasty. If I am having someone over who is allergic to nuts, well, I just use sesame seeds instead.

I just think that a tomatillo is basically unripe tomato! I mean, a tomatillo is green and then it ripens into a red tomato! Just like a mango is green and then ripens into a yellow-red-orange colored sweet mango.........makes sense, right? I do see a difference between a tomatillo and a tomato though--- the former has a green paper-like husk around it while the latter has no such thing. Also, when you peel that husk off, the inside is kind of sticky. And of course, the inside of a tomatillo is hard compared to the inside of a tomato. If you want more info on a tomatillo, please google or err, bing (but its not google!)! ;)

 See the husk around the green tomatillo?

After peeling off the husk

See the inside? Resembles a gooseberry, don't you think? 

Making this chutney is very simple. Took a handful of peanuts and spread them onto a m-wave safe plate and popped it in the m-wave for about a couple minutes. I used peanuts with skin off. More convenient, I think. Meanwhile after cutting the tomatillos (see above picture) I sauteed them in a couple teaspoons of oil in a pan, along with 4 thai green chillies and a pod of garlic (the garlic is not really needed). The result looked like this:

Perfectly cooked tomatillos- took about 4 minutes and with the addition of salt, released some water.....

Then I ran the peanuts through the food processor till they turned into a powder. Added this cooked tomatillo into the peanut powder. Ran the food processor once more. And presto! the chutney was ready! I garnished with some splattered mustard & cumin seeds.

 Tomatillo Chutney ready!!

What did we eat the chutney with? AHEM! The plan was to eat the chutney with "Idlis," a south indian rice cake, supposedly very healthy. I don't  know what the issue is, but I SUCK at making idlis! I have been trying for the last 12 years and if I remember correctly, I have been successful only about twice or at the most, thrice! Today's attempt was yet another disaster. They were idlis, but well, not good (I did not even bother taking a picture)............but hey, in life, we gotta make some compromises! ;)