Desi Salad /Tomato Onion Salad

Before coming to the US , anytime anyone mentioned the word salad - what came to mind was this mixture of tomatoes,onions and green chillies flavoured by nothing more than salt and maybe a splash of vinegar. It still remains one of my favourites, specially if I have vine ripened homegrown tomatoes.

Home grown tomatoes are so full of flavour that you should not mask their flavour by cooking them or mixing them with too many other ingredients.This is one salad that you can have with fried fish, fried chicken or any meat ,Biriyani , chappathi or even rice.

What comes to mind when I think of this salad is the family trip we had taken to a hill station near Munnar called maattupetti - this was waaay back when I was in school, more than 20 years ago.We stayed at a hotel that did not have a restaurant .We used to have lunch and dinner at the employees mess.There was this elderly cook who allowed us inside his kitchen to watch as he cooked.One night for dinner he had made this salad with tomatoes that grew in their backyard ,they were not even perfectly ripe and was still speckled with green ....I still have a vivid memory of that day.It tasted heavenly and thus started My love affair with the homegrown tomato . They are sweet,sour,juicy and tastes like summer.Try some and I am sure you will be hooked.

Ingredients:
Tomatoes - 2 sliced(preferably vine ripened fresh tomatoes)
Red onion - 1 sliced very thin
Green chillies - 2 cut into rings
Salt - to taste
Vinegar - 1/2 tsp (optional)
sugar - 1 pinch(optional)

Method:
If you cant get good quality tomatoes - adding a pinch of sugar and a splash of vinegar will brighten things up a bit.
Just mix all the ingredients and let it sit for 15 minutes to let the flavours blend.