Total time required to make: 15 mins
Serves: 3- 4
I don’t find eggplant to be the most versatile vegetable. Apart from typical dishes like the Maharashtrian ‘bharleli vangi’ [which is eggplant stuffed with a peanut paste], a simple dry curry, raita [ a summery salad] or it’s use in a ‘pulao’ [pilaf] of some sort, I usually can’t think of new dishes to make from it!
Eggplants tend to have minimum flavour of their own, so depend on other ingredients to impart their flavour on them, and being very absorbent, are good at doing so. Eggplant fritters can make some people think of eggplants dripping with oil...and if made in too much oil/ kept in oil for too long, that’s just what they will become. In this recipe, I cook most of the eggplant with as little oil as possible before adding a little oil towards the end for flavour. This means that the eggplants aren’t as oily and bad for your health as they could be! This dish is best served as an accompaniment to a main meal and taste great with cool yogurt to counteract the spicyness.
Ingredients:
1 large eggplant, cut into 1cm rounds
3-4 tbs rice flour
2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp dhana jeera powder [coriander seed- cumin seed powder] (not essential)
Pinch of turmeric
½ tsp ginger-garlic paste
Salt to taste.
Oil for frying
Method:
1.Cut the eggplant into rounds and salt them immediately to stop them going brown.
2.Make a mix of the rice flour, spices and paste.
3.Heat a non stick pan and add no more than 1 teaspoon oil to coat the pan. Dip each eggplant round into the spice mix and place into pan.
4.Let the rounds cook for 3-4 minutes on a very LOW flame on each side without adding any oil.
5.To test if they are cooked, cut one in half. When they are almost cooked through, add about 1 tablespoon of oil and increase the flame to medium-high. Cook for a further 1-2 minutes on each side while continuously shaking the pan to prevent sticking.
6.Drain well and serve with minted yogurt.
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