Baingan ki Dry Sabji

Brinjals, together with cauliflowers have to be my favourite vegetables. I like the smell of both raw and cooked brinjal, their rich purple colour, their inherent rich taste which makes even a simple chachhari seem ...rich ..:)
My simplest go-to recipe is to just stir-fry them with Paanchphoron, but I wanted something a little less basic and something a little more ..like the hearty sookhi sabjis of north india which I love.

I followed the recipe from here, however, I did not fry the brinjals and potatoes beforehand(actually I did not add potatoes at all). That specially seems to fit the objective of this blog, which is mainly to produce eatable and more than eatable food in the shortest time possible. While frying the vegetables would definitely have added to the taste (in fact, most of my Bengali folks did not believe that brinjals could actually be cooked without being deep fried at first), it would  have resulted in a much longer, more laborious process, to say nothing of the quantities of oil that would have been required.

Ingredients:

Brinjals
Whole Ginger
Green Chillies
Red chillie powder (optional) or Deghi Mirch
Tomatoes
Jeera Seeds
Dhaniya Powder
Turmeric
Dhaniya Patta



Slice the brinjals into smallish pieces, whichever way you like. I cut them into halves and then slice them longitundinally and then horizontally. I find large or medium sized brinjals much easier to do than those tichy small ones.Rub some salt on the pieces (this apparently makes them absorb less oil) and leave aside.

Heat some oil and chop the tomatoes while the oil is heating. Once the oil is heated, drop the jeera seeds into the hot oil, and once they stop spluttering add the tomatoes and stir till mixed. Now add green chilies(though I usually add these first, however I tried it in another order here), give the tomatoes some time to get nice and squishy.. Meanwhile scrape off the ginger peel and grate it; revel in the fragrance. (it helps to have soaked the ginger piece in some water)
Now in a small bowl mix the grated ginger(should be paste like), the turmeric, coriander powder, red chillie powder with some water and make into a smooth paste. By this time the tomato pulp should have been squished out. Add the masala paste and stir till it becomes semi-dry and everything is well integrated. Now add the brinjal, stir it so that it is well coated with masala put the heat on medium high and cover it. Add salt, and keep stirring at five or ten minute intervals so that all the brinjals get the heat evenly. Add more oil if required. I like my brinjals nice and soft and mushy. While the brinjals are cooking, one can chop coriander leaves and put them in at the end, however this adds to the time spent in the kitchen.

Note: this dish tasted better a couple of days AFTER I made it, in a similar way to meat dishes.