Heirloom Tomato Raita: Goodbye, Summer!

Fall always comes with a tinge of sadness for me, particularly because I miss all of the delicious varieties of summer fruits and vegetables that are available to us in magical California. I am lucky to live in San Francisco though, and our summer tends to be a bit longer, generally extending into October.

It was a warm September Saturday, and I wanted to make something *desi, healthy, and with locally sourced produce. I went to the market and saw some beautiful heirloom tomatoes.

and I decided that I would make some heirloom tomato raita. Raita is a comfort food of sorts for me. It’s basically a savory yogurt dish that is served as a side dish in much of India. I grew up eating it on rice, as a side dish to cool down the heat from fiery curries, and as a snack. Its probably why I find typical American, sugary yogurt so disgusting. It just seems wrong.

At Whole Foods, I picked up some Pavel’s 2% yogurt for the base of my raita. It’s probably the closest thing you can get in conventional stores to Indian style yogurt. You could try making yogurt yourself of course, but if you don’t have endless hours of time on your hands, Pavel’s will suffice.

First task at hand- I pan roasted some spices. I took 1/2 a teaspoon of mustard and cumin seeds and heated them up in very hot oil- any type of vegetable oil suffices. I used olive oil in my case. The roasted spices add a little *zing to the raita and cumin adds an interesting flavor.

I added the roasted, hot spices to the Pavel’s yogurt, which I had dumped out into a bowl:

I then chopped up 3 of the smaller heirloom tomatoes and added them to the yogurt. I also added a pinch or two of salt to taste. Lastly, I ran down to the garden in our little yard and grabbed a few mint leaves and a couple basil leaves.

 I chopped them up, and mixed them into the yogurt mixture, and voila! I had fresh raita ready to go. I enjoyed this over rice, and as a side dish with some of the meals I cooked later that week.