Egg Plant (Brinjal) Chutney

Monday, January 5, 2009

This Chutney is similar to North Indian Baingan Bhartha. We use to eat this with sangati (rice cooked with Ragi flour) which is a great combination. You need to carefully select brinjals (eggplant) for this because we will not cut the brinjals to see if they are infected with worms. Make sure brinjals doesn't have any holes and also they are tender. Also better to use a big brinjal since if you use small one it is tough to burn it on flame/stove top and you need to burn many brinjals. Green Brinjals tastes better but if you don't find them you can use whatever you have

Ingredients

1 Large brinjal
lemon sized tamarind (or 1 to 2 Tablespoons Tamarind paste)
3 to 4 green chillies chopped (adjust to taste)
1 medium size onion chopped
1 teaspoon ginger chopped
salt to taste
1 teaspoon oil

for tempering

1 teaspoon oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon urud dal
pinch of asafoetida
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
curry leaves (optional)

Method

Apply Oil to the eggplant and place it on the gas flame by turning it around so that it is cooked uniformly inside. Place it in the flame/fire until it is soft or you feel it is cooked nicely inside. Remove from the flame and cool the brinjal and remove the skin, mash it and keep aside

Heat Oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds, add cumin seeds and asafoetida, turmeric powder, urud dal and fry until it turns brown. Now add green chillies, curry leaves, ginger and onions and fry for 3 to 4 mins. Add the mashed egg plant, tamarind paste, salt and let it cook for 4 to 5 mins.

Garnish with coriander leaves and eat with hot Sangati or rice or Roti

Notes:

You can keep the Brinjals in oven and bake/broil at high temp by turning it until you feel the skin is cracked and easy to remove. Make sure Brinjal is soft which means it is cooked nicely inside.

Guthi vankaya (Stuffed Brinjal curry)

Friday, January 2, 2009

Ingredients

10 to 15 small & fresh brinjals (Egg plant)
1 cup peanuts (dry roast and remove the skin)
1 cup sesame seeds (dry roast)

4 to 5 dried red chillies
1 Tablespoon of coriander seeds
1 teaspoon of cumin
5 cloves, one small piece of cinnamon stick
10 fenugreek seeds (menthulu) (this seed tastes bitter so reduce if you don't like bitter taste)

1 medium sized onion
2 to 3 medium sized tomatoes
lemon sized tamarind extracted into paste

salt to taste
Method

1) Blend all the above ingredients to a think paste. Divide this paste into 2 portions 1 for stuffing and other for making gravy/sauce.

2) Cut the brinjals lengthwise into 4 pieces but without breaking them as you see in the picture. If you want you can remove the stems.

3) Stuff the paste inside each brinjal and keep aside (if the brinjals are too small and you decide not to stuff to save some time make a gravy of the ingredients by adding some water and pressure cook)

4) Heat Oil and splutter mustard seeds, add the stuffed brinjals and stir-fry for 3 to 4 mins. Add some water to the remaining paste and add it to the brinjals and cook until brinjals are cooked. At this point you can also pressure cook this gravy so that you don't have to keep stirring the gravy.

Brinjal (eggplant) Dry Curry

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Ingredients

10 medium sized brinjals (eggplant) cut into 4 pieces (if you have long brinjals cut them into 1 inch pieces lengthwise)

for powder
4 to 5 red chillies
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 Tablespoons sesame seeds
3 Tablespoons chana dal (split bengal gram dal)
1 teaspoon oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
curry leaves
pinch of asafoetida (optional)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
salt to taste
Method

1) Dry roast all the ingredients for powder and grind them to powder (do not grind too smooth to maintain the texture of the powder)

2) Heat 1 teaspoon oil and splutter mustard seeds, add pinch of asafoetida, curry leaves and turmeric powder and fry for 30 seconds

3) Add brinjals and stir-fry, cover and cook until they are tender.

4) Add the powder and salt, mix well so that the brinjals are completely fried and coated with powder

This goes well with rice or chapathi (Roti)