Indian(Maharashtra) Stuffed Tomato Vegetable

Directions

1. For stuffed tomatoes: Cut tomato only half cm from the stem part. So that you have a big round tomato. Carve all 5 tomatoes so as to have big empty containers. Keep the carved content aside.
2. Take the carved content, 5 curry leaves and 1 spoonful of fresh coriander in a grinder(Small vessel of the food processor) and wet-grind the content.
3. Divide this content in 2 parts. Take one part in plate, mix it well with 1 tea spoon salt, 4 spoons of groundnut powder, 1 spoon of chilli powder+indian garam masala,1 tea spoon salt. Stuff this mixture in the empty tomato containers.
4. For gravy: Take the half mixture that we kept aside in step 3. Mix this with 2 garlic pods, freshly chopped ginger,1 onion pilled and cut in 4 pieces. Wet grind the whole mixture to form a thin fine paste.
5. Heat 2 tablespoon oil in a frying pan. Best indication of oil reached proper temperature is it starts stirring little bit and forms very small film of fume.
6. To this heated oil, add 1 tea spoon of turmeric powder. Remember to keep the gravy mixture made in step 4 at hand, to add immediately to oil-turmeric before the turmeric starts to burn in oil.
7. On a very low flame(Low heat in case of hot plates), keep on stirring the gravy content. Cover for 3 minutes with a lid. When the gravy is cooked well, onions no longer smell. At this stage, add spoonful of chilli+indian curry masala(Or your own homemade family spice that you use daily) and stir well. Add 1 tea spoon of salt and stir well.
8. Now very gently put 5 stuffed tomato in this mixture. (Your fingers need to be close to gravy so that the tomato stuffing does not come out.) After all tomatoes are kept in gravy, gently pour some gravy from the pan on top of tomatoes.
9. Put a deep lid on frying pan. (In case of non stick pans that come with lid, put the lid upside down so that concave part is upside.) Pour water on the lid. This water will serve as barrier to avoid gravy from burning. Cover for 3 minutes. Open and gently make stuffed tomatoes upside down and cover again 5 minutes or till cooked. Depending upon type of tomato and thickness of cover, it will take time to cook or will be cooked fast.
10. Turn off the flames or heat and keep covered. It will still cook with steam. Serve hot to eat with indian flatbread. This gravy also tastes great with plain cooked rice.