Tomato Pickle

Out of nowhere I'd this sudden urge to make tomato pickle, andhra style. So I got about searching a nice recipe and found this by Indira. The pickle came out pretty good. I used only 5 tomatoes to make it: firstly, because that's all I'd and secondly, I wanted to start it small. Here's the recipe reduced for 5 tomatoes:

What you'll need:

5 Tomatoes
1 tsp Tamarind extract
3 tbsp Oil
1 tsp Red chilli powder
Salt to taste
1/4 tsp Fenugreek powder (I dry roasted fenugreek and then ground it)
For Tadka:
1 tsp oil
3 curry leaves
1/2 tsp ginger-garlic paste (original recipe calls for garlic, but I'd this paste at home so I used that)
pinch of asafoetida

Let's make:

1. Wash and wipe the tomatoes. Chop coarsely.
2. In a big, non-reactive pan, add and heat sesame oil (I used ordinary oil that I use for cooking).
   
3. Stir in tomatoes.
   
4. Add red chilli powder, salt and tamarind pulp. Mix and cover the pot. Cook on high heat, stirring in-between for about 10 minutes. Tomatoes will be mushed down and you will be seeing lot of tomato juice trying to splash the counter-tops.
   
5. Add the fenugreek powder. Reduce the heat to medium, partially cover the pot and simmer until the tomatoes become thick but spreadable like jam. It takes around 30 minutes.
   
6. At this stage, fine-tune the balance and adjust salt and chilli levels to your liking. The next step will be adding the toasted ingredients.
7. In a skillet, heat the sesame oil for tadka. Lower the heat to medium.
   
8. Add the garlic paste first and then the curry leaves. Toast to pale gold color. Turn off the heat.
   
9. Stir in asafoetida. Mix and immediately add the toasted skillet contents to the tomato pickle.
10. Stir so that everything gets well combined. Simmer, uncovered for about ten minutes, gently mixing. I continued heating till it reached a consistency that I thought was how a pickle should be. It was almost dry. Turn off the heat and let the pickle cool. Do not cover the pot.
11. Store the completely cooled tomato pickle in a clean glass jar with a tight lid.