Mushrooms in slow roasted tomato and basil gravy

A sure experi-mental dish, I thought of trying this when I saw lots of  lovely sweet basil growing in my tiny balcony. I had tasted the slow roasted tomato basil soup in one of my favourite restaurants and loved the flavour. My son loves pepper of any kind, black, white, red, green fresh ones, so I have used 2 kinds of pepper and cloves, the only  aromatics  to add to the aroma of basil. 

Ingredients
250 gms of mushrooms cleaned chopped and sauteed with a little salt

2 tomatoes chopped into roundels
2 sprigs of sweet basil or about 10 to 12 leaves
2 onions chopped into thin long pieces
1 inch ginger crushed
6 cloves of garlic
1 tspn chilli powder
1 tspn of black peppercorns, 1 tspn of white peppercorns, 3 cloves pounded in a mortar pestle

3  green chillies slit in between for the garnish

Method

On a flat pan smear a bit of oil and arrange the basil and the tomato roundels to roast on a slow flame, flip and cook each piece and leaf till done

Meanwhile in another  take some oil, add the pounded spices, saute a bit till the aroma spreads in the 
kitchen,  add the garlic saute till light brown, add the ginger and  the onions, cook this till it turns golden brown. Now blend all the ingredients to a smooth paste, this includes the tomato basil too.

In the same pan as you cooked  the masala add the paste and cook till done, no need of oil since the ingredients have already been cooked in oil, cook till the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Add the mushrooms and salt  and add water if required. 

For the final garnish I have used only a bit of oil and the slit chillies.

Serve with roti, phulka, rice or paratha. What will hit your palate first is the pepper, what remains on your tongue after eating it is the sweet aroma of the basil.

Got good pictures of the basil flower, felt like sharing them with all of you.