Always Food Talk

Today I put forward another family heirloom that our grandma, ammamma, passed on to us grandkids, an eternal love and appreciation to brinjal/eggplant or vankaya. This recipe here is a love letter to this vegetable. Our family call this the king of all vegetables. I always complained how the eggplant here does not have the same taste that we find back home. I may have found a solution to this problem- grow your own!

When I curated the saplings for my patio kitchen garden, I knew I had to pick the finest small eggplant variety to grow. These organic little fingerling variety is just that! It gives the Asian sized eggplants and in bunches! I could harvest five at a time and had five more on their way on the plant. Talk about instant gratification!

After teasing my instagram followers for weeks on the eggplant harvest updates, starting from flower to fruit, I took votes on what to make out of them. An overwhelming majority wanted to see the recipe for this simple stuffed eggplant recipe. The nostalgia was palpable guys! I, personally, was debating between an eggplant pot rice meal versus this stuffed eggplant. I went with what people wanted to see in this space.

I have heard how fresh vegetables taste different from store bought ones, but never realized that freshly plucked vegetables are totally a league of their own! They cook quickly without needing much heat and melt in your mouth.

I added the curry powder that amma made and sent from India and will also be posting that recipe for those that are interested. So, the famous way of making the stuffed eggplant is to fill the sliced eggplants, which are still held together by the green stem, with a spoonful of this curry powder and add them to hot oil in a pan. But, what we need to realize is the vegetable needs a little longer to cook and the curry powder does not need to be recooked at all. So, this process will need to burning of the curry powder. Instead, what amma recommends is to lightly salt the eggplants and add them to a pan with a teaspoon of oil to cook. Within few minutes, under closed lid, they are cooked to the core and we can add the curry powder to the slit eggplants.

Ingredients:

• 5 small eggplants
• 1 tbsp avocado oil
• 2-3 tbsp curry powder
  • 1/2 cup grated coconut
  • 2 tbsp chana dal
  • 1 tbsp urad dal
  • 3-4 whole red chillies
  • 1 tbsp coriander seeds
  • A pinch of asafoetida/hing
  • Salt

Recipe:

1. For making the curry powder, dry roast the lentils – chana dal and urad dal and when they are brown, add the red chillies and coriander seeds, which do not take as long to brown. Turn off the heat and add the grated coconut. Let the contents cool down in pan. Transfer the contents to a spice jar or blender and add salt and hing and grind to a uniform powder. This can stay bottled in an airtight jar for few weeks to months.
2. Take the eggplants and use a knife to carefully slice them in length, but still held together at the stem.
3. Rub some salt on the inside using your fingers delicately.
4. Warm up the skillet and add a teaspoon of oil and place the eggplants in the oiled skillet.
5. Once you hear one side sizzling, slowly turn them such that the uncooked side touches the skillet and cooked side comes up.
6. After five minutes of cooking, close the lid and keep cooking on medium heat.
7. Check in five minutes to see whether the eggplants have shriveled up. If not, turn the direction and continue cooking with the lid closed.
8. Add 2 tbsp curry powder and try to use a spoon to scoop it inside the eggplant gently.
9. Cook under closed lid for another two minutes and turn off the heat. The eggplants will continue cooking in the hot skillet for a little while longer.
10. Serve it with a cup of hot rice with a dollop of ghee or a flatbread roti, again with a dollop of ghee! Do not forget the remove the stems before eating though.