Tomato Rice/Takkali Saadam- Dedicated to Sushila Paati and Shoba Aunty

Thanks to Shoba aunty for making such amazing tomato rice last sunday and giving me the inspiration to make it for lunch today. Tomato rice and vengaya vadams remind me of the fond memories of living in VV puram,blore with my paati (grandma)and late thatha (grandpa). My paati, who is an expert cook would make these mixed rice for me to take to school with vadams, neatly packed in ziplock. And not once did she forget to put a spoon (unlike my mom who usually would forget and my hands would end up smelling like curry for the rest of the day!...hehe). Tomato rice with vadams is a pretty emotional combination for me.
My sweet paati in the below pic :-
















Ingredients:-
2 large tomatoes grind to make a puree
1 lager onions chopped
few curry leaves
1 tspn mustard seeds
1 tspn jeera
1 tspn urad dal/ulattam paruppu
1/4 tspn turmeric powder
2 tspn red chilli powder
1 tspn ginger paste/ginger grated
3 green chillies finely chopped
1 tspn garam masala
1 inch of cinnamon
salt to taste
4 cloves
hing/asafoetida to sprinkle
Salt to taste
few broken cashews to garnish
Few coriander leaves chopped to garnish
2 tbl spns ghee

Method:-
Heat the ghee in pan, Fry the cashews till golden brown and keep aside.
Add the mustard seeds and wait for them to crackle.
Add jeera, curry leaves,green chillies,cinnamon,cloves,ginger paste,asafoetida and onions. Fry till onions look transparent.
Add the tomato puree. Add the turmeric powder, salt, chilli powder and garam masala.
Cook well for 15 minutes. Mean while cook the basmati rice with 2 cups of water in the rice cooker. Cool the basmati rice fater its cooked.
Add the rice to the tomato masala . Toss and keep it for 5 minutes so that the rice soaks up all the masalas.
The rice should be dry and separate (not sticky and wet). If it is, then microwave the rice for 5 mins. If too watery, then add more rice.
Garnish with cashews and chopped coriander leaves.
Serve with vadams/papad with curds/pain yogurt as shown below.