My Favourite Vegetarian Indian Dish: Baigan Bhartha (Eggplant)

I realize the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, which is kind of how I feel about my repeated efforts to make baigan bhartha. I feel somewhat justified in the fact that I keep trying different recipes, but does that make me only sort of crazy, or just stubbornly determined?

When I go to an Indian restaurant I want meat. Vegetarian seems like a waste. For all the oil they add, it's just not as mind-blowing as it should be. Meat is where the real special-occasion flavour-fat splurge comes into play. Long-cooked cubes of meat dissolve in rich, oily, intoxicating stews. All the spices just make the rich flavours of the meat jump out in a way that lentils can only dream of. Don't get me wrong, I love saag and I like daal, but I will always go with the lamb dish.

The only exception to my rule is baigan bhartha. When I see this smoky eggplant dish on the menu I get the same pang of desire that I get when I see lamb roganjosh (in a smell test I will forever go with the lamb...). In a restaurant the eggplant is cooked until mushy in a tandoor (sometimes) and then added to a lusciously oily mix of spices and often tomatoes. I have tried (mostly in vain) to recreate the restaurant experience at home. My failure has a whole lot to do with the fact that I refuse to use about 10 tablespoons of oil and a little to do with not owning a tandoor or even a real grill or charcoal BBQ. My latest attempt was pretty good, but it just didn't get the smokiness of a tandoor. Next time maybe I will add some liquid smoke.

What I did use to guarantee that at least the dish wouldn't be too acidic were San Marzano tomatoes. These are the gods of tomatoes. Italian Grandmothers weap over these tomatoes. Not regularly, mind you, but in the strange case where they didn't can enough to make it through the winter and spring. I mean, they could buy the canned ones, which are amazing, but that might be embarrassing for them. I am not an Italian Grandmother. I am not easily embarrassed.

The thing about these tomatoes is that they come from one region in Italy where the tomatoes are naturally very sweet. So the acidity is very low and when you cook with them you don't need to add any sugar. If you taste a tomato sauce and it tastes sweet the cook probably added sugar, and if you call them on it they will be embarrassed. He or she is probably not an Italian Grandmother either, but still fairly easily embarrassed.

This isn't even an Italian recipe and here I am off on a tangent about a country's grandmothers. Back to India.

...

(It's a long trip)

Anyway, this bhartha recipe was not bad. I think I needed a higher eggplant to tomato ratio, since it turned out more like a bruschetta with eggplant or the world's best ratatouille, or a really good pasta sauce or pizza sauce, rather than a very good bhartha. None of these alternatives are bad, however, and the leftovers were turned into all of the above - successfully. The only funny thing is that every time I had this dish I got thirsty, which makes me think I used too much salt. Since I checked the tomatoes and there was just about no sodium in the can (another plus of San Marzanos) it had to be from the bhartha recipe.

Ingredients:
2 long, thin eggplants (I didn't use the purple ones or the really huge standard ones, but a few smaller standard ones instead. I hoped this would minimize the natural bitterness of the vegetable. I also peeled them since a lot of the bitterness is in the skin)
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 large onion, diced
1 tbsp ginger, grated
1 can San Marzano tomatoes
3 long red chilies (the recipe called for long green chilies, but the red ones turn green after they're red, so I figured it'd be okay...and I couldn't wait that long. I had a bunch sitting in my kitchen and I was not about to go out and buy another bunch, as much as I am obsessed with heat)
1/2 tsp garam masala (home-made!!! Hurray!)
Red chili flakes (to taste. Probably 0 teaspoons for the weak of heart. About 1/2 a teaspoon for me...I know, ridiculous. It's not even a matter of pride, as in "See how much heat I can take!" It really is that I am addicted and on my tongue it helps bring out the other flavours. I still taste everything else. My tolerance has gone up and I need more of the drug to get my fix. Really, it's a relatively healthy addiction, mom)
Salt, to taste (I swear I only put in a pinch because salt is essential, but somehow it ended up too salty. Who knows?)
1 whole cup of cilantro leaves (really, less is fine since it's just for garnish. I don't even like adding it directly to the pan unless you're going to eat all of it in one go. It shouldn't be reheated. Much better when it's fresh)

You're supposed to grill the eggplant but I don't really have a grill. I always roast it. The point is you want it cooked, and roasting is so easy. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise and then score them (mark 'X's in the flesh with a knife). Place them flesh-side up on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until they're soft (mushy is fine. They just shouldn't be tough or rubbery. Pressing down on them with the back of a fork should cause the eggplant meat to break apart pretty easily. Just taste it and if it has to be really chewed, it's not done). I kind of just stick them in as soon as I can in the getting-dinner-ready process and cross my fingers they're soft by the time I need them. My success rate is okay. I'm working on it...

While the eggplant is roasting (or grilling. The grilling will make it more charred and give a quasi-tandoori smoky flavour) cut the onion and measure out all the spices. The ginger and garlic can go in the same bowl and the tomatoes, red chilies, and garam masala can go together in another. Everything else needs its own plate or dish.

This dish is best served with bread, not rice (the recipe actually suggests roti, naan, phulka, chapathi or paratha. So take your pick of Indian flat bread. I say Italian piadina works fine. Regular bread - like a country loaf, not Dempsters - will turn this into bruschetta), so get that all ready to go (if you're toasting or heating, put it on a plate or set it in the toaster oven and don't turn it on, etc). Basically do everything you can to waste time while the eggplant is cooking. Eat a salad, if the mood strikes.

When the eggplant is done take it out of the oven. Don't scoop out the flesh now. It's too hot. I have enough burned fingers for us both.

Now heat the oil in a large pan or skillet. Keep it to one area of the pan while it heats on medium-high. Then add the cumin seeds to the oil. This minimizes the amount of oil you need. Wait 5 seconds and then add the onions. The worst thing you can do is not cook the onions long enough, and sadly this is easy since you're not using a lot of oil. Use 3 tbsp of oil if you absolutely love fried onions, but I'm telling you it's a waste because in the end the onions won't taste fried. They'll just be swimming in tomato sauce and it'll be a waste of the oil. So it's your choice.

You have to stir the onions religiously or they'll burn. If they start to stick add a tablespoon of water. Add more water a tablespoon at a time each time the onions start to stick.

When the onions are soft, not crunchy (up to 10 minutes), add the ginger and garlic and stir and cook for 3 minutes. Again, no burning allowed.
Now add the tomatoes, fresh chilies and garam masala. Add the red chili flakes if you want and taste first, and then add a little salt only if it needs it. Turn the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. If the sauce is thick it might start to spit a little, so you can cover it if you want.

Finally, a chance to rip apart eggplants.

Scoop the flesh out of the eggplants and chop it roughly. Okay, it's true, the eggplants could have been sitting in the oven cooking all this time you've been dealing with onions and the like, but then when you took them out just a moment ago they'd have been too hot to handle. So if you're in a time bind, be prepared to use gloves or burn your fingers to get your eggplants properly cooked. Slimy chunks of eggplant are what you're after. Unappealing now, maybe, but I swear, completely delicious.

Now add your delicious eggplant slime to the tomato mixture. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. Garnish with cilantro. Dream of an even better eggplant recipe next time, and how much you love bruschetta.

Garam Masala Recipe

Apparently Garam Masala just means "hot and spicy". Like "curry", it's just a blend of different spices, roasted and then ground. The base of it is usually cinnamon, coriander and cloves but other spices drift in and out of recipes. So every Indian cook has their own blend, or more likely, their mom's blend (If you don't know how to pronounce the name, just remember that it rhymes: "Mom's GarAM". So many recipes call for garam masala that I don't think I could ever stick with just one recipe. Funny how I have no problem using the same spice over and over when it's called for but if you give me an opportunity I'll tinker and always try something just a little different. If you give an inch I'll take a mile?

Ingredients:
1 tbsp cardamom seeds (I used the whole pod because I couldn't be troubled to open the pods. Actually, I think I just misread)
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 piece star anise
2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp dried coriander seeds
1 bay leaf
1 2" long cinnamon stick (I couldn't remember where my cinnamon sticks were so I sadly used about a tbsp of ground cinnamon)
1/4 ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground allspice

Put all the whole spices (if you can find whole nutmeg and allspice, go for it) in a small frying pan over medium heat. Don't use any oil! Put all the ground spices into the blender or coffee grinder. You can also use a mortar and pestle, but in that case you don't need to add the pre-ground spices to it.

Use the handle of the frying pan to gently move the spices around from time to time until they start to brown slightly and give off an aroma. When you can smell the spices (approximately 2 minutes) they're done and ready to be ground. Throw them into the coffee grinder or blender with the pre-ground spices and blend or grind. Or grind them by hand in the mortar and pestle, then mix in the pre-ground spices. Store the spices in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.
They'll keep up to 3 months, but after that it's not like it goes bad, it's just not as pungent. About the same as a grocery store variety, but it's still home-made, so psychologically you'll still feel better about it.

About the blender versus spice grinder versus mortar and pestle:
Some Indians think that a coffee grinder grinds too fine, and the same could be said for a blender. They don't want to end up with a powder. A textured spice blend would have bigger pieces of spice and retain a fresher flavour. So a mortar and pestle is by default the best solution, but then are different types of mortar and pestles and some are easier than others to use. There is also mortar and pestle technique, and different sizes of the t0ol. Basically granite is probably the best, not marble, and it's not so much jabbing or stirring, more of a crushing motion with some turning of the wrist outward. Anyway, however it gets crushed is fine, including a plastic bag, well-0sealed, beaten with a mallet or something heavy.

One more thing, normally you cook with bay leaves and don't eat them, but here the bay leaves get ground into the powder. I don't know how I feel about this since they're not very digestible. I've also seen a lot of garam masala recipes that don't use bay leaves at all, so feel free to leave them out.

Masala Puri

Spice is what you need when it's hot. The heat makes your body work to cool itself down. It's like turning your interior freezer to 'ON'. Indian food is the perfect balance of heat and less heat. Cool yogurt, fresh cucumbers, cooked beans and spices. Every spice for a different purpose, and sometimes every spice at once. Like here, with this masala puri recipe.

So with my very refreshing mint chutney I made this...
There's no actual puri bread here, since I had just made gluten-free bread (which is completely different. Puri is a slightly sweet flatbread and mine was a yeast bread, but I just put the masala on a bed of lettuce. There is potato in the dish anyway, so it's not lacking for carbohydrates. I mixed some of the chutney in and I served some on top as well, along with some thick yogurt (actually, kefir, but it's very similar). The sweetness of the dairy was perfect with the surprising sweetness of the masala.
Ingredients:
3 small (or 2 medium) potatoes (peeled, boiled and mashed coarsely, or roasted, peeled and mashed. I happened to have the oven turned on so I just threw the potatoes in whole, unseasoned, pricked them all over with a fork so they wouldn't explode, and stuck them directly on the oven bars for about 50 minutes. Just leave them until they're tender. Then peel off the skin once they cool. You can also boil them and then peel and mash the same way)

1/2 cup dried chickpeas (soaked in water for about 6-8 hrs, or overnight. Or you can cover them with 1 1/2 cups water, bring a pot of the chickpeas and water to a boil on the stove, boil 3 minutes, and then cover and let stand for an hour. OR just used canned, but the taste is not the same)

1 - big onion, chopped finely, but it doesn't have to be too precise unless you care about such things
1 tsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
3/4 tsp garam masala (home-made is best)
3/4 tsp chaat masala (again, home-made is best and recipe to come. Mmm...mango powder)
1 tsp tamarind paste or a lime-sized piece of tamarind pulp soaked in warm water for 30 minutes (I just left it in the water for about an hour. Then what you do is take the ball of tamarind and press it through a fine sieve. Then pulp that come out is what you want to use. Throw away the fibres that don't get pushed through)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 cup mint chutney
cilantro, for garnish
1 tomato, chopped into small pieces
salt to taste

So you need to cook the chickpeas. If you just did the quick soak method with the whole 'letting it sit for an hour after boiling for 3 minutes' thing, you now need to drain the chickpeas, rinse them in cold water to wash off some of the starch that gets stuck on them, and then put them back in the pot with about 3 cups of water. Bring THAT to a boil, cover, reduce the heat, and let the chickpeas simmer for 80 minutes. I got away with 65 minutes, but my bean bible says 80. It's your digestive tract, though, so do what you will.

When the beans are done, just drain them away and rinse again. Yes, you are allowed to just use canned chickpeas, but trust me, it's just not the same. There'll be a starchy, slightly acidic taste and they won't be as nutty and sweet as fresh beans will be. They really should taste a bit like tahini (sesame paste) for hummous, but without adding any. Anyway, enough about chickpeas. The can is easy and convenient (thus, North American), but the fresh method is more delicious (thus, Indian. Though I know lots of Indian-Canadians who cheat).

Heat the oil in a big pot over medium-high heat, and when it's hot add the cumin seeds. Don't spread the oil around. Keep it in one area of the pot and then add the seeds directly to the oil. It infuses the oil better this way without adding heaps of it.

Now add the onion, and stir and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is soft. I under-cooked my onion (again! I always do this by accident, since there's not as much oil as there could be) so test it and make sure it's not still crunchy before going on to the next step. It'll ruin the final texture of the dish.

Now add the chickpeas and the boiled and mashed potato. You want to do the whole boiling or roasting and mashing thing in advance since you don't want to be waiting for it to cook and then burn yourself peeling it while it's still hot. Preferably do this while the chickpeas are cooking. Even smarter would be to use leftover potatoes (unseasoned!!! Sour cream and butter have no place in this recipe).

Now, I don't know what a "bhaaji consistency" is, but you're now supposed to add enough water to the pot to create one of these elusive things. Apparently I need to make more bhaaji. This is obviously what I'm doing wrong with my life. I just added enough so that everything got smooth and easy to mix, and then added a bit extra because the recipe recommended erring on the side of slightly soupy. So add about a cup of water. Up to 1 1/2 cups.

Now add the garam masala, the chaat masala, the sieved tamarind, brown sugar, mint chutney (more or less a 1/4 cup, to taste), the red chili powder, and turmeric, bring to a boil, and cook for a few minutes. If the mixture gets too dry, add more water. "Too dry" means "annoying to stir". It's easy to boil off excess water at the end, but not easy to fix the recipe if you burn it now. Also, since I undercooked my chickpeas in the first place I thought it would be fine to add more water now to help them along.

Now add a pinch or so of salt and adjust the other seasonings according to taste. Whatever that means. I've never made this before, or eaten it, so have no idea what it's "supposed" to taste like. If you like the taste, leave it as is. If not, add some more of something that has a flavour you think you might want more of, like more brown sugar if it's not sweet enough, more mint chutney if it needs more herbal freshness, or more tamarind for intense sour. The brown sugar makes this spicy and sweet, which is just wonderful, and all the spices in the garam masala and chaat masala make this a sensory overload for your tongue. I don't remember the last time my taste buds didn't know what hit them, like they did with this dish. "Red wine sauce" this, "olive oil and lemon and dijon" that - these are all well and good, but these fresh Indian spices...wow.

To serve this, either take crackers (or real puri bread. Crackers are no comparison, but serve for a good crunch replacement in a fix), or serve as I did with a bed of lettuce. Spoon some of the chickpea mixture on top and then sprinkle with some of the chopped tomato and cilantro. You can add some of the extra mint chutney and yogurt directly on top, or serve it on the side, or not at all. Really, the chickpea and potato mixture is great on its own, or just with bread, and doesn't need anything else to make it a delicious meal. The lettuce, tomatoes, yogurt and extra mint are all overkill, but they'll send you into Indian heaven. Well, I mean, it's a bit more complicated than that, what with all the "Hare Krishnas" if you're Hindu and other complicated issues if you're Seekh or Muslim, but the gist is you'll be pretty happy with your dinner. In the end, isn't that what we all want out of life?

Satisfaction and Christmas Eve Indian: Madhur Jaffrey's Kashmiri Lamb Rogan Josh, cabbage with peas (bund gobi aur matar), basmati rice and yes, naan

There are two recipes for Rogan Josh in Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking. I've made the first and was disappointed. the flavour was off, and it wasn't as full-bodied and epiphanal as it should have been, despite all the fresh spices. but I love this book and I decided it was worth trying the second one. The main difference is this one is stewed with the bone-in and uses no garlic or ginger, replacing it with fennel and way more yogurt (in my case almond breeze, because as miraculously as I can eat probiotic yogurt, once you boil it all the nice friendly bacteria are murdered and they're avenged by the lactose that quickly runs amok in my lactose-intolerant stomach. The almond breeze was thinner than the yogurt so I boiled off more of the liquid, looking for the right stew consistency in the end, the same way you can make evaporated milk).

To go with this there were two cabbages in the house, and two cabbage recipes in the cookbook.

I thought a bit of basmati rice would be lovely, and not trying to overwork myself for the day, decided to forego the undertaking of naan bread. but I got cajoled into it.

Kashmiri Rogan Josh
fennel seeds
plain yogurt (or almond breeze)
cinnamon stick
cloves
stewing lamb with bone
salt
paprika
cayenne
ginger
water
garam masala (this is just a blend of spices. Every Indian cook has their own blend, and uses different proportions, but the books' version calls for a mix of cardamom seeds, cinnamon stick, black cumin seeds, cloves, black peppercorns and nutmeg ground in a coffee grinder. I think I accidentally left out the nutmeg and peppercorns and used ground cumin instead of seeds. Oops, but it all worked out just fine)

Indian must be prepped. Grind the fennel in advance and set aside. Make the garam masala and set aside. Then portion out all the spices and combine the ones that go in at the same time. I would even go so far as to set them up in a line in the order in which it's all added. All this "1 second later add..." is ridiculous, but I am not Indian. Who am I to judge?

So with help, we cut two inch cubes off a huge chunk of lamb, which was...well, bloody, and harder than a chicken to butcher. I saw a guy at a market do it in 2 minutes...For me, it took 40 minutes to get the cubes cut and the fat trimmed. Then the fun started.

You grind fennel seeds in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle, set a bit of oil (way less than the called-for 6 tbsp) and add whole cinnamon and cloves, followed (exactly two seconds later) by the meat and 2 tsp of salt. 5 minutes later add the paprika and cayenne (I wonder if this was traditionally done with saffron but it's more expensive. You need a good paprika to make this work). Then add the yogurt slowly so it doesn't curdle. If you use almond breeze like me you don't have to worry so much about this, but this whole time the heat has been on high, so if you skimp on oil, as you should, I think, you need to make sure you're stirring very quickly up until this point. Without enough oil, the spices won't release their flavours very well. The stew is going to be fatty enough, just because it's a fatty meat. You don't get a lot of flavour from the vegetable oil, so I don't see the point.

Then add the fennel and ginger powder and then the water. Now leave the lid ajar (more ajar if you use almond milk or another kind of milk) and finally reduce the heat to medium. Let it cook 30 minutes, then cover completely and reduce to low for another 45 minutes. When it's all done, remove the lid and add a little garam masala, very, very little and either boil off excess liquid or serve immediately. Remember to remove the bones!

Oh wow it worked. So, so much better than the other recipe in the book for rogan josh. It's incredible what a slight difference in spices can make. Or, more likely, stewing with the bone in. All of a sudden you're transported to a world where your taste buds are happy to belong to you. They veritably sing.

The cauliflower dish was simple and beautiful and was underwhelmind compared to the rogan josh, but the sweetness of the peas and cabbage, was still nice. I think it would go better with fish, maybe chicken. Definitely something with lemon.

Bund gobi aur matar (cabbage with peas)
green cabbage
peas
oil
cumin seeds
bay leaves
turmeric
cayenne pepper
hot green chili pepper
salt
sugar
garam masala (the same as above)

this was simple and beautful. The prep was the most time-consuming bit, chopping the cabbage into fine, long threds.

Heat the oil, add the cumin and bay leaves (again, no cumin, so I added it later. Browning ground spices doesn't work well and you end up with burnt flavour). A few seconds later, once the bay leaves take on colour, add the cabbage and peas. 30 seconds later, the cayenne and turmeric. Cover, turn heat to low. 5 minutes later add the green chili, salt and sugar. Cover again and cook 2-3 minutes. Remove the cover and sprinkle with garam masala. Stir and serve. Remove the bay leaves! I love how the basic recipe is the same for most Indian dishes. Whether it's a 20 minute vegetable dish or an hour and a half meat dish, the concepts are the same. Ah, tradition. That's what Christmas is all about.

Basic recipe for everything Indian "stewed":

Heat a ton of oil
Add whole spices for a short period of time
Add meat or vegetables
Add other spices in a ridiculously precise order (potentially also add liquid)
Add fresh chilis and spices that have an immediate impact (salt, sugar)
Add garam masala. The freshly ground, uncooked spices, season everything (a more well-rounded generic seasoning than the Western use of salt and pepper)

Then I burnt the basmati rice. It didn't boil over. I'm an idiot. So I scraped the unburnt rice into another pot, add more water and cooked it on low until it was actually done. Blasphemous, I know. From a girl who respects the rules of proper-rice making, and even calls herself a sushi-maker, soaks, lets sit and tries so hard to perfect rice, this was embarrassing. The best-laid plans...

And the naan. I was nervous then, having messed up rice and meringue already that day. but my dad wanted it, so I set the yeast to sit in warm milk (almond breeze for 20 minutes). Maybe it was too hot. There was no temperature given. Anyway, it sat for a little over 20 minutes. How bad is that? I've only made bread maybe 3 times in my life. I'm no bread expert, yet. So I chastised myself a little and added the overly-soaked yeast and to the mixture of flour, salt and baking powder. Then I added the teaspoon of sugar (fully-refined sugar, so the yeast had a fighting chance, as opposed to a sugar replacer like xylitol or agave nectar with a low glycemic index), vegetable oil, soy yogurt and one beaten egg. I hate soy. It hates me. Mostly it hates me, but I used it here because there was really no alternative. Probiotic or soy, either way my stomach will be unhappy with me. The bacteria dies, but in retrospect I should have used probiotic to help the yeast along. The bacteria doesn't get killed until after the rising process. I kneaded, and kneaded and kneaded until it became "smooth and satiny" or so I thought. Maybe it wasn't long enough? Maybe it wasn't elastic enough? I shaped it into a ball, placed it in a bowl coated in oil, rolled it around, covered it with plastic wrap, and left it in a warm place to rise for an hour.

It didn't rise.

So many things could have gone wrong. It turns out there was a draft behind the stove. I couldn't place it in the oven at it's lowest temperature or even with the light on, because the bowl was plastic. Whatever the reason, it didn't rise. So the "punching down" process was short. The rest was fun, though. If you've never made naan, I recommend it for aggression. You get to knead, yes, but then you get to divide the ball into six smaller balls, roll them out one at a time and then "slap" them onto a heavy baking sheet. Put them in the oven, preheated to the highest possible to temperature, to recreate the heat of a tandoor clay oven. 3 minutes later put them under the broiler untnil they puff up and crack on the top. That is perfect naan. Mine were not perfect, but they cooked well, they puffed, they got slightly blackened craters and looked wonderful. They were just a bit...dense. Like excuses people make for children. Yes, it's true, I perhaps like naan more than I like children, even these naan.

Because they were beautiful and still tasted sweet and chewy, it was not a trial to use them to soak up the delicious juices of the rogan josh. Although the salty sauce soaked better into the basmati rice, there is something so natural, and fun, about scooping meat onto a big piece of flat bread. Bowl and meal in one. Messy, yes. Delicious, yes. This is not "proper" food. This is salt of the earth appreciation for the miracle of good food, good company and the entire experience of eating. So different from the French interpretation of the same mantra.

Despite the mistakes, the chaos, the time involved, this was an unforgettable meal. It finished perfectly, with the jarring contrast of a chocolate mocha mousse (pudding sort of), whose meringue didn't rise, whose chocolate didn't thicken, and which tasted absolutely delicious and satisfying none the less. Yes, satisfaction. That's the word I was looking for.