My mom has always liked eggplant. As a child, I hated it. Perhaps it was because she often made bharta out of it. Bharta is basically smoked, roasted eggplant, which once soft, is mashed. I firmly believe that it's not for everyone.
She did make another recipe, in which the eggplant is cut into 1-1 1/2 inch rounds. Making sure each round has been patted down to get rid of excess moisture, each round is then seasoned well with salt and pepper, rubbing it in well with your fingers. Then again, using your fingers to rub it in, tumeric is also added. Then each round is fried in a neutral oil on high heat. They are flipped two or three times until they are completely golden and cripsy on the outer edges.
That was what I made last night. Though I wasn't the biggest fan of them as a child, they tasted fantastic last night. The centres were nice and tender and full of flavour and the outer edges had a nice crisp to them.
As for the green beans, I have to say I find the whole steaming things a little boring. even after adding the butter. Thankfully I have my Madhur Jaffrey World Vegetarian cookbook, which is always good for giving me great ideas. I came upon a recipe called bengali-style green beans. Well, this was just perfect. I was a little wearly though as I read the entirity of the recipe. It called for grinding up two tablespoons of mustard seeds and soaking them in 3/4 cup of water and letting it sit for 30 minutes. As I cooked the green beans with some white onion, slivered green chili, salt and pepper, I was to add the mustard liquid, leaving behind the remaining mustard sludge. Now, I love mustard, especially the whole grainy types, but this just wasn't something I was used to. However, as the liquid cooked down, and the beans were served on a bed of white basmati rice, they were actually pretty fantastic. As Matt put it, "the mustard isn't overwhleming at all", which of course is what my fear was.
All of this was served with another dish of fried cauliflower, okra and potatoes. My mom makes a similar dish, in which she starts off with halved okra and diced potatoes and fries them until tender, seasoning them with turmeric and a few other spices. That is then added to some diced eggplant and everything is then stewed together with water, cloves and cinnamon. While I like that dish with the eggplant, I love that first initial process of the fried okra and potatoes. As I had some leftover cauliflower, I added that into the mix as while. On medium high heat, I added just enough oil to a non-stick skillet to coat the bottom. I started with the potatoes and some thinly sliced onion. Once that got going I added the cauliflower, broken into florets. After about five minutes I added the whole okra. I seasoned it all while whole cumin and mustard seeds, turmeric, coriander spice, salt and pepper. I cooked it until all the veggies had nice crisp edges and everything was nice and tender.I know it seems like I've been cooking a lot of fried dishes as of late. It's probably because I have been. I guess Bengali's just really love fried food?
