Nune Vankaya Koora, Bagara Baingan, Brinjal Kurma ~ Indian Gravy dish
Dear Friends,
This is one of my favorite dish, which I regularly prefer to serve for my guests for lunch or dinner. It goes well with rice or briyani or chappati or any other nan breads.
Brinjal is also called, eggplant, aubergine, melongene, brinjal or guinea squash.
Ingredients:
Brinjals – 8 to 10 (small, young and fresh brinjals)
Onions – 2 medium sized
Tomatoes – 4 medium sized (Optional)
Oil / Ghee / Butter – 4 or 5 Table spoons and some extra oil to fry brinjals
Salt – To taste
Chopped Coriander leaves – 1 Table spoon
Chopped Mint leaves – 1 Table spoon
Red chili powder – 1 tsp (increase or decrease according to your taste)
Ginger Garlic Paste – 1 tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Masala to be grinded:
Coconut pieces – ¼ cup (or 2 to 3 Tbsps of dry coconut powder)
Garlic Cloves – 3
Garlic Cloves – 3
Cloves or lavang – 3
Cardamom/Elachi – 2
Cinnamon – 1 (1 inch small stick)
Bay leaf – 1
Groundnuts – ½ Cup
Sesame seeds – 1 Tbsp
Coriander seeds – 1 Tbsp
Cumin seeds – 1 Tbsp
Poppy seeds (KhusKhus/gasalu) – 1 Tbsp
Water – to grind the paste
Procedure:
1. First dry fry whole garam masala (Cloves, Cardamom, Cinamon and Bay leaf), poppy, coriander and cumin seeds in low flame for 3 minutes. Once the aroma is spreading you can switch off the stove and collect it into mixie jar or any plate.
2. Then now to the same pan add groundnuts and fry them well, after they are fried to 80% add sesame seeds and fry in low flame for 5 mins. Collect the whole thing into mixie and allow it to cool for ten minutes. Now grind with garam masala spices. Add water to make it to a fine paste (Not too fine/smooth).
3. Cut the brinjal as four parts but don't cut at the end. Starting at the opposite side of the stem, make a plus (+) shaped cut towards the stem side, but not all through.
4. Immediately put them in the oil, fry slowly stirring occasionally till they
are fully softened. Collect them into a bowl.
5. Add butter or ghee to a pan and add onions. Once onions become transparent, add ginger garlic paste and tomatoes and fry them till tomatoes become soft. Now add the masala paste, red chili powder, tumeric powder, salt and little water and cook it well by stirring occasionally once masala starts oozing oil add brinjals and cook in low flame for 5 to 10 minutes so that brinjal absorbs masala flavours into it, stir once in between if it is needed.
6. Finally add chopped coriander and mint before serving.
Dish is ready to be served.
Here instead of tomatoes you can use 2 table spoons of tamarind juice with little jaggery. You can also use cashew nuts instead of groundnuts to the masala paste. You can add the gram masala spices into the butter before frying the onions instead of grinding them with groundnuts.
This same gravy can used for bell peppers/capsicum or bajji chillies instead of brinjals.
