Calories in Onion Tomato Raita

This is the raita most often sent out with biryani: chopped raw onion and tomato folded into beaten curd. The recipe uses 100 g of curd, 40 g of tomato and 35 g of onion, enough for one small bowl. That matches a single home helping fairly well, though the bowl placed in the middle of the table for everyone to dip into is several of these. A caterer's or restaurant's version may be thinned with water, which lowers the figure per bowl, or sweetened, which raises it.

Of the energy in the bowl, 47% is carbohydrate, 28% fat and 25% protein. The curd provides nearly all the protein and fat. Onion and tomato add a little carbohydrate, which is why this bowl has 12.6 g of it and comes out above a mint raita made from the same amount of curd, at 81 kcal. The 10.6 g of sugars in the bowl is what is naturally present in the curd and vegetables; the recipe adds none. This is the highest of the four raitas in the set, but the spread from lowest to highest is small enough to ignore when choosing between them.

A bowl of this raita takes up about 5% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 6% of a woman's. Next to a plate of biryani or pulao that runs to several hundred calories, it is a small addition that supplies what the rice lacks: 6.6 g of protein, the calcium that curd brings and some raw vegetable. Three bowls over a long dinner come to 315 kcal and 19.8 g of protein, which is still less than a second plate of most rice dishes.

Raw onion and tomato draw water out once they are salted, so this raita turns thin and sour if it stands. Mix it shortly before eating. The recipe is salted, and extra chaat masala or black salt adds to that. Anyone asked to restrict salt because of blood pressure should stay within the limit their doctor or dietitian has given, including what comes from sides like this.