Eggplants Masala

Stuffed Eggplants Masala:

Stuffed Brinjal Masala. Baingan Subzi.

Whenever I talk about egg-plants(brinjal), I really long for that 'spiny wild variety'. Yeah...pretty much still resembling the old world species. Anyway, ancient eggplants were all white in color, though! Constant selection and breeding made them to appear in different colors now.

Hmmm, eggplants are one of the oldest vegetable that our ancestor's domesticated. Well...people generally think, only animals are domesticated! But truly ancient Indians did research(observe) and carefully selected pure cell lines, to produce less bitter vegetables. Why to go into ploidy and multiple genes kind of stuff here....

Thanks to modern science as well, now we could enjoy this vegetable through out the year, which is also large, colorful, seedless, resistant...what not.

Ingredients:

Small Eggplants 6-8
Onion 1 grated
Ginger-garlic paste 1 teaspoon
Tomato 1 crushed
Dry coconut 1/4 cup
Dry red chilies 1 fistful
Salt
Turmeric 1/2 spoon
Mustard seeds 1/4 spoon
Cumin seeds 1/4 spoon
Asafoetida 1/4 spoon
Curry leaves few
Sesame oil 1/4 cup.

Method:

Wet-toast coconut, till fragrant. Dry toast chilies. Now blend them together, set aside.

In a wide wok, heat oil. Add all the tempering spices...followed by onion and ginger-garlic paste.

Now fry real good, till fragrant...add salt, turmeric and toasted powder. Also add tomatoes now.

Stir-fry for couple of minutes, then add slitted eggplants. Cover and cook, till tender.

Serve warm to go with you plain steamed rice or chappathi.