I could just be a navel-gazer and say we had it in us all along, but. I’ve never been a navel-gazer after all, have I.. that title is reserved for my wonderful friend Bharti.

And here’s a wonderful moment for an aside. You see, I received an email from this wonderful navel-gazing friend of mine today. A one-liner – not to express her how much she misses me, but to ask whether I was pissed with her over something. Of course not, it was just so wonderful to hear from her, and however much I begrudge her for sending me a one-liner (you see, she’s a gifted writer), I sent her one myself, for which I should be duly ashamed.. a longer email is long overdue. Gosh, it’s been over a year since we met, which doesn’t seem really long, but it is. I long for the days when we spent endless hours in the sun (in Dilli winters) and endless hours under the Nescafe umbrella shade (in Dilli summer) yapping in parallel streams of conversations that only ‘us’ understood.

(Pulling myself away from the nostalgia)

Anyway, so the success of our cooking must lie in the flavors in vegetables and meat in Saigon. And perhaps, practice. After all, we have been cooking so much more than we used to. And enjoying it too. Just today, Pratik made guacamole, and I made my first attempt at an involtini.

Nothing close to the Italian gourmet dish with its fluid meat slices, crusted with bread crumbs and filled with expensive cheese, but it was involtini nonetheless. And since I’m such a bhulakkad, I think it might be useful for me to have the recipe written down somewhere, just so I don’t forget it, along with everything else I did on this absolutely gorgeous Saigon day.

Another ‘aside’ moment. I had a lazy morning in bed after two long days of teaching. We were out of brown bread and frozen parathas, so we got dressed first thing to go out and get some. The walk to the bakery, for the bread, and the supermarket, for the paratha, is just about a km or two, but it was such a beautiful day – the sun wasn’t even peeking through the clouds, the clouds weren’t even menacing and threatening to burst, and there was a very un-Saigonly breeze in the air – we decided to enjoy the morning and walk on. For four hours, we walked aimlessly, through downtown, exploring new-found alleyways and narrow streets. I bought a beautiful, if too loose on my much-thinner-than-2009 frame, blouse that I can’t wait to wear (shhh.. planning to wear it on our anniversary dinner night). Discovered a great banh mi seller – new favorite in this part of the town.. her bread was about an inch shorter than regular banh mis but the pate and meat floss and veges more than made up for it. When we got back home at half-two, both of us just flopped on the bed and almost dozed off.

And then when hunger struck again, P made me the guacamole, which we had with toasted dark rye bread. Very nice it was too (f-ed up Indian English syntax I louuu.. he he). In the meantime, I had been browsing the internet looking for new ways to use the lone eggplant in the fridge. I found some very interesting involtini recipes. Now, I didn’t have half the ingredients called for in the classic recipes but I do have an imagination, as some would say.

So here’s the involtini I made:

I took my lone, lean, mean eggplant.. not the stout ones I would’ve loved to have, this one one long and thin.. and sliced in diagonally in thin slices (not too thin, they’d break when being rolled). I smeared each slice with a mixture of fresh-ground pepper, jeera powder, and a little bit of oil. Now, I arranged all the slices in my spanking new Teflon pan and let them brown on both sides. Take them off the heat to cool.

I had two sausages wallowing in the freezer. While I was playing around with the browned eggplant, P grated the sausages and browned them nicely too. Now, I took the browned meat and added a triangle of cheap Vina cheese and mashed it through, forming a sticky, lumpy mixture. I took a few pinches of the mixture and patted it down in the middle of each eggplant, then rolling it and placing it seam-side down on a plate.

Voila! Instant Involtini.

Took about 15 mins. YUM.

This is how you do it.

For one omelet, for one healthy person, with a healthy appetite:

Take a large, ripe avocado. It has to be squishy and mushy, not tender green. Scoop it out and mash it with a fork or whatever you may have at hand. If you scrub your hands well enough, you’re allowed to get messy

Now, add any seasonings you may want. I chose salt, fine fresh ground pepper, red chillies. Crack a couple eggs into the guacamole mixture and whip up a creamy paste. Pour this into your pan making sure to spread it out using a spatula. The paste will be slightly thicker than pancake batter.

Flip when one side is browned in patches.

Enjoy!

I think the loveliest thing about the avocado omelet is the fluffiness, apart from its beautiful Virginia green color.

Note to self  - must take pics next time, for the sake of this blog.

There was a time when I used to scrunch up my nose at the mere mention of baingan, or eggplant. Perhaps it was just that I had grown up on a weekly diet of awful baingan sabzi (which had healthy amounts of heeng, that I used to hate) and aloo baingan bhujiya, which was mildly tolerable. i never enjoyed baingan in any form until I met Pratik, or more accurately went to his Bilaspur home.

Now, I don’t know whether it’s true for all Bengali homes (would be too much of an essentialization if it were), but Pratik’s Bilaspur home is full of some very awesome Bengali cooks. Whether it’s his kaku, kaki, peeshi, or jethu,jethima – they’re all magicians once they enter the kitchen. It’s amazing how many spectacular dishes they turn out at meal times. That is not to say all the food is healthy. In fact, some of it is very deep fried. But oh my gawd, is it yummy!

It’s in that house that I first had properly deep fried baingan bhaja – melt-in-the-mouth deep fried eggplant slices marinated in plenty of spices.

Then, in the States we rediscovered baingan in different cuisines  - PF Chang‘s eggplant chicken, Gulzaar’s Lebanese babaganoush, Persian’s kash-e-badenjaan, and Trader Joe’s Eggplant Hummus.

I didn’t experiment much with cooking eggplant in the States, and I’m making up for lost time here in Vietnam. There are loads of eggplant dishes I love to make and eat now. But this one is my new obsession, perhaps coz it’s so simple and needs so little prep. And it can be as healthy as you make it.

For 4 servings with rotis, here’s what you need -

yogurt – 1/2 kg
eggplant – 2 large, or 6 small
coriander powder – 1 tsp
cumin powder- 1 tsp
red chili powder- 1 tsp
turmeric powder- 1 tsp
garam masala- 1/2 tsp
salt and pepper to taste
chopped garlic – 3-4 cloves
chopped chillies – to taste

Here’s what you gotta do -

1. Mix all the spices together in a large bowl. Slice the eggplant in 1/2 inch thick slices and toss them into the bowl with the spice mix. Mix well to coat all the slices. Let this sit for about 15 mins.
2. Spray some cooking oil into a non-stick pan (if you wanna keep it healthy), or add a small layer of oil to your pan. Shallow fry the eggplant until fully cooked. If you’re not using too much oil, monitor the heat regularly. If the heat is too high, you might end up with eggplant crisps. What you want is squishy cooked eggplant slices.
3. Remove the eggplant and transfer to a serving bowl.
4. Add the yogurt to the bowl which had all the spices in it. Swirl so the yogurt soaks in the leftover masala.
5. Pour the yogurt over the eggplant.
6. In a separate smaller pan, hat some oil. Add a pinch of cumin powder, garam masala, and chopped garlic, chillies. Let this sizzle for half a minute, and pour over the yogurt.
7. Yum yum!

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients –

2 big, fat eggplants
500 gm Yogurt
Mint/Basil leaves
Salt, Sugar to taste

Method –

1. Make deep slits in the eggplants with a knife. Roast the eggplants until the skin is charred through and the you can smell goodness.
2. Leave to cool. This will take at least half hour.
3. Peel the skin off the eggplants. Slice them in two and deseed without losing any flesh.
4. Dump the yogurt in a large cotton cloth to drain out the liquid. You should have creamy yogurt that is difficult to scrape off the cloth. (I just used a new men’s handkerchief to strain the yogurt; it worked alright)
5. Blend the eggplant, yogurt, and a 4-5 sprigs of basil/mint.
6. Add a pinch of sugar and salt to taste.
7. Serve with olive oil pooled in the middle. Sprinkle chopped basil (just a little bit) or some red chilli powder to add some color.

It should be heavenly with steamed vegetables, pita bread, tandoori roti, nan, and even toast.

Give it shot.