This recipe of tamatar bonda has a special story associated with it. When I was a research scholar at the department of botany at Banaras Hindu University, in the mid nineties there was a chaiwala at the 'botany crossing'. Usually he used to make samosas and chai , but whenever there was a rain he would always make this 'tamatar chop' as he would call it, and we friends (including now my husband Arvind) used to rush to the shop, as the bondas would disappear fast they were in such high demand. They used to be straight out of the kadhai very very hot and I remember the way we used to dig into the soft tomatoes, so hot to handle that often somebody would get a scalded tongue..
Eating those tamatar chops in the rain is still a nostalgia inducing memory and even now when it rains we both remember that and I have to get going. Food always brings sweet memories.
see how the tamatar bonda a chop gets going when you want it...
Microwave 2 large potatoes and till they are cooling to be peeled, scoop the flesh out of 4 large tomatoes......like this......
Chop an onion, few green chillies, 2 springs of coriander leaves and a bit of a ginger root finely. Peel the potatoes, which must be cool enough to handle by now. Mash it and mix with the chopped ingredients. Mix in salt n pepper to taste.......some chaat masala too if the tomatoes are not sour.......
Now stuff this potato mix into the hollow tomatoes and keep aside.........
Heat oil in a deep pan to deep fry these bondas and till the oil gets hot, make a besan batter for dipping the bondas.
For the batter, take 3/4 cup of besan into a bowl and throw in salt n pepper to taste.......
a tbsp of ginger garlic paste, a tsp of haldi, now pour water slowly to make a thick coating batter......
Now dip each stuffed tomato into the batter and dip into the pan to deep fry, turning it to let it fry evenly.
Serve hot with a chutney of your choice. Normally I make a chutney with the scooped out tomato flesh with some coriander leaves but this time being quick served it with a preserved (pickled) green garlic chutney which tasted awesome with it.
And this is the inside view, the cross section of the tamatar bonda...
For making the process easier, you can halve the tomatoes , scoop out the flesh and fill the potato mix to make a round shape, dip into the batter and fry in the same manner........see how it looks...
Eat it hot to make my phone pictres worth.....with or without chutney.........
Really awesome! New to me! I heard of potato bonda and stuffed tomato bonda individually, but never heard of both combined together! Looks so yummm... One of the bondas in one pictures seems to be popping out of my monitor screen! :D
ReplyDeleteyummmmmmmmyyyyyyyyy......... I stumbled upon your blog today while searching for banarasi kachori, and have been just scavenging thru it. I have been feeling hungry since early evening, and wanted to eat something totally banarasi, especially after reading your blog :). Tried tomato aloo bonda, came out well... but the besan batter would not stick on tomato.. :-(. What's the secret behind it? I had excess batter and filling, so ended up making aloo bonda and some gobhi-pyaz pakodi too, with garma-garam adrak waali chai.... aur kya chahiye.... :) btw, do you mind me asking ki when were you in Faculty of Science, as I was there too in ninetys...
ReplyDeletehey Puja...the batter has to be thick enough like the pic..
ReplyDeletei was in the women's college from yr 88 to 91 the from 91 to 93 in department of botany doing my M.Sc. ...then from 95 to 99 i was doing my research in the dept. of botany...a long time span i have spend there...which dept. you were n in which year?
mail me at sangeetaamkhanna@gmail.com
Hi!
ReplyDeletei saw this recepie on ur blog long ago, however i lost the url!, today when it was raining realy nice here in mumbai, i cudnt resist searching recepi n making tomato chop.
but yes, the transverse n lateral section of bhonda whihc u have posted, shows ur a botanist! haha..
Keep posting something uniqe like this!
ha now i get, how my new botony professor sangitaji, is able to guide me, pl madam, help me more to improve my knowledge on plants, and where is the doctorate now,
ReplyDeleteha ha Nirupama...
ReplyDeleteand this sangeeta ji ??
why ji...am i too old suddenly?
Respect due to knowledge not age and this ji is restricted to only to plants and not khana, pl where si the doctorate now
ReplyDeletehaah...even knowledge is not that much ...we are all learning you know.
ReplyDeleteI left my research after a 4 n half years of work , that's how whimsical i am . But there were more reasons to that ...rest of it some other time.
An awesome recipe during rains. However,I'm not able to view the pictures. Kindly help
ReplyDeleteThe pictures were lost due to a technical glitch sometime ago. I am restoring them one by one. Sorry for the inconvenience.
DeleteHope you are able to follow the written instructions till then :-)
Okie, didn't check the post properly yesterday and i was about ask you for the recipe then checked the FB page, saw your comment and came here!!! Totally yum!!! i m going to try it for the weekend!!
ReplyDelete