Monday, July 14, 2008

Stuffed Eggplant Karnatka Style(Badanekayi Ennegayi)




There are many ways of preparing stuffed eggplant and if you go online you will find hundreds of good recipes. I haven't met a person who doesn't like stuffed eggplants and this dish is relished by a lot of people, though each one has their own way of making stuffed eggplants. When we were kids and used to travel by train in India, we used to carry our food to eat on the way. Those days it was not common to eat fast food or food in restaurants or dhabas. One of our favorite travel food was stuffed eggplants, and this is one of the dishes that tastes good even when its cold. This is my mom's way of making stuffed eggplant, hassle-free and yummy. My brother and I enjoyed stuffing those cute round eggplants with the stuffing my mom used to prepare and then we would enjoy the eggplants with Jowar rotis(jolada rotti), which were so delicious.



Ingredients:
Round indian eggplants - 10, washed and slit cross-wise
Roasted peanuts - 1 cup
Roasted sesame seeds - 1/2 cup
Tamarind paste - 1 tbsp
Sambar powder - 1 tbsp
Salt - to taste
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Jaggery or brown sugar - 1/2 tbsp
Red Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Dhaniya powder - 1 tsp
Oil - 2 tbsp + 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Jeera seeds - 1 tsp



Method:
Make a powder of roasted peanuts and sesame seeds. Take the peanut powder and sesame powder in a big bowl, add tamarind paste, sambar powder, salt, turmeric powder, jaggery, red chilli powder, dhaniya powder and 1 tbsp oil, mix well and stuff this in the slit eggplants. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan, when hot add mustard seeds, jeera seeds, when the seeds splutter gently add the stuffed eggplants, sprinkle about half a cup of water, cover and cook on medium-low flame for 5 min. After 5 min. turn them over gently with a spatula, taking care not to break the eggplants, check to see if the gravy is too dried out, in which case you will need to add anothr half cup of water, cover and cook for another 10 min. Turn the heat off when the eggplants are soft enough, don't overcook the eggplants otherwise they will be very mushy. This eggplant curry can be best enjoyed with chapathis.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Ritha,

I just have a doubt.. I am an amateur cook, so I hope you bear these stupid doubts of mine. After stuffing the eggplants and putting those in the pan (after the tadka of jeera), do we need to fry them before adding water. And u have mentioned to check the gravy if dried out. For the gravy do we need to add the paste that we have prepared. Because we are just adding the stuffed eggplants to the pan right. we arent adding any masala to get the gravy.

Please help

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