The purple beauty

Till the time I came to the US, I stayed away from brinjals. They were just another vegetable that I detested. My mom made the best stuffed brinjals, but I did not touch the sticky vegetable and safely ate the gravy. As for long brinjals, I once found little worms while eating baingan ka bharta, so you can imagine how I felt every time someone served me that.


Things changed after coming here. The first thing I learnt about brinjals is that they are called eggplants here. Then there were so many varieties of eggplants to choose from - long, small, Japanese, fat/cylindrical eggplants. Being a vegetarian there are very few options one has if you have to eat out. There were times when we our dinner expeditions resulted in returning back after eating only soup or salad. If we were lucky, the restaurant would have 1-2 vegetarian dishes. Inevitably, one of the dish would contain eggplant as the main ingredient. No matter which cuisine we tried, eggplant followed us everywhere.


In a popular Chinese bistro, I kept aside all my reservations about eating eggplants and tasted their heavenly stir-fried eggplant. At a pizza place, we fell in love with a pizza topped with Japanese eggplant. In a Mediterranean grill, we consumed large quantities of eggplant mixed with scrambled eggs. Slowly and surely, I started liking this vegetable. As and when I tasted all these divine dishes featuring the purple beauty, I would shop for eggplants and try new dishes using them. Pavani's Eggplant in coconut gravy was an instant success; Nupur's Wangi bhaat was licked down to morsels. However, there was one dish that I could never get right - stuffed eggplants. I faced trouble every time I made it; either the masala wouldn't turn out right, the eggplants wouldn't cook completely, or the masala and eggplant would not gel well.


Mom helped me make perfect, tasty stuffed eggplants. Nothing went wrong this time. Here's the recipe:


Stuffed eggplants/ Bharleli Wangi

Serves:4

Ingredients

1. 9-10 brinjals/small eggplants/baby eggplants


2. 2 medium onions - chopped very fine


3. 6 tbsp peanut powder


4. Salt to taste


5. 1 1/2 tsp red chilli powder (Go easy on this if you are not comfortable with spicy food)


6. 2 1/2 tsp garam masala powder


7. 1 tsp mustard seeds


8. Pinch of asafetida


9. 1/4 tsp turmeric powder

Method

1. Wash the eggplants and make one horizontal and one vertical cut on one side of the eggplant. The cut should be such that you can easily open the eggplant for stuffing. Keep the cut eggplants in a bowl of water.


2. Prepare a masala by mixing together the chopped onions, peanut powder, salt, red chilli powder, and garam masala powder.


3. Stuff the prepared masala in each eggplant. If you still have some masala remaining, preserve it to add to the vegetable.


4. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan. Add 1 tsp mustard seeds; once it splutters, add pinch of asafetida, and 1/4 tsp turmeric powder. Mix well.


5. Next add the stuffed eggplants, the remaining masala, and around 1/4 cup water. Mix well.


6. Cover and cook on medium heat till the eggplants are cooked.


7. Garnish with some chopped coriander leaves. Serve hot with chapati/puri/bhakri/rice.

I served this vegetable with Jowar bhakri, Nupur's Kothimbir wadi, and some onion slices.