I’m very obsessed with eggplant, very.
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 -
- 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.
- 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.
- Remove the eggplant and transfer to a serving bowl.
- Add the yogurt to the bowl which had all the spices in it. Swirl so the yogurt soaks in the leftover masala.
- Pour the yogurt over the eggplant.
- 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.
- Yum yum!
