Chargrilled Eggplant

It's a very unusual dish to kick off a food blog, but It's one of favourite dishes, very earthen, very country-side.. My mothers makes it the best, with just a correct amount of extra oil, spice and flavour...

A key to a good chargrilled eggplant dish (Baigan Bharta) is a good, ripe but not very seeded eggplant. Hold 2 similar sized eggplants, 1 in each hand; one feeling lighter than the other would be the better and lesser seeded... The eggplant I used was 15cm (6") X 7cm (3") approx., and weighed around 400gms.. Here, in India, the gas stove is predominately used, so roasting  the eggplant on the stove is quite easy; All those using an oven or a hotplate, could try it too, but I am not sure how the grilling would look like!

List of ingredients:
1 mid-sized Eggplant (roasted)
2 Onions (roughly chopped)
4 Tomatoes (mashed/purred/chopped)
2 Green Chillies (cut into small)
1" Ginger piece (sliced)
Turmeric
Red Chilly powder
Salt to taste
Coriander to garnish (the more the better)

Tomatoes, Green Chillies, Ginger, Onions

Now time to roast the eggplant. This is usually done by putting a stove-customized grill over the gas burner; Me not having any, just put the washed eggplant on the gas and let it burn away.. Keep rotating and turning over the eggplant for even roasting of all sides..  Keep it on lowest heat and the warm, burning. earthy smell will tell you when the eggplant is done.. Alternatively, insert a clean knife to check the softness..

Eggplant on the gas stove.

When the burning aroma sets in, turn off the heat, and put the burn-scared eggplant in a bowl of water. This will cool down the eggplant and help in peeling off the skin..

Now chop the skinned burnt mash of the eggplant and remove some seeds, if any... Then, roughly chop onions, and slice the ginger.

In a wok (Kadhai) heat some oil. Now at my home, this dish is made with extra oil i.e. extra love, but you needn't fall prey to that.. It would tale just as delicious with minimum oil.. If you use a non-stick wok (Teflon coated), the dish can be had while dieting also..

Then added sliced ginger and chopped onions. Saute them till golden brown. Add chilly pieces and cook some more...

Then add chopped tomatoes, and salt.. Cook with a lid on and medium heat till the tomatoes are mashed and there is oil on top.. You might need to stir in between to prevent the onion-tomato mix from sticking and burning...

Now you can add the turmeric powder and red chilly powder.. Green peas are also added when they are in season, or now-a-days, frozen peas have defied the laws of mother nature, so you needn't wait for winter to get those luscious, green pods.. I like peas, but not in this, so I would chuck that step...

Now turn the chopped up eggplant mess into the onion-tomato mix and stir, mash, cook, stamp, to make sure that the eggplant is totally dissipated into the spiced gravy.. Cook for few minutes on low-medium heat till it's pretty dry.. Garnish with chopped coriander, and enjoy with Paranthas, Rotis...


I know not many kids like to have Brinjals, but studies show that Brinjal can help lower cholesterol... :) Okay, which type of brinjal do you use in your cooking, normally?