Brinjals for Dummies series or 101 on brinjal curries should start with this Besan Baingan, I think. Sauteed brinjals coated with besan and spice mix make an excellent, easy to prepare curry. The ingredients list is not much and preparation time is minimum. Can be cooked in maximum 10 to 15 minutes, when you’ve all the ingredients ready to go. A must try for brinjal fans.
Brinjal Pieces in Water and Besan (Gram Flour)
Recipe:
12 small bulb shaped brinjals (purple or green)
4 tablespoons of besan (gram flour, sanaga pindi)
8 dried red chillies
1 Rupee coin sized ginger – grated or finely chopped
1 teaspoon each – sugar, cumin and turmeric
For popu or tadka: 1 tsp each – curry leaves, mustard seeds and oil
-¼ cup of roasted cashews.
(I’ve added the nuts but this is entirely optional. Besan Brinjal taste is impressive with or without cashews.)
Grind together – besan, dried red chillies, sugar and cumin to fine powder in a spice mill or mixie.
After removing the stems and sepals of brinjals, slice them into thin pieces lengthwise and drop them in salted water in a bowl (like shown above).
In a wide skillet, heat a tablespoon of peanut oil. Add and toast curry leaves and mustard seeds.
Remove brinjal pieces from water and add them directly to the skillet. Be ready for sizzling noise. Also add grated ginger. On medium-high heat, saute, turning often with a perforated ladle, so that they fry uniformly on both sides to a gold coloured tender pieces. Just before turning off the heat, stir in besan-spice mix along with salt and turmeric. Mix and fry for few more minutes until the sweet smell of besan permeates the kitchen. Sprinkle roasted cashews or nuts of your liking (watermelon/pumpkin/sunflower seeds – they all taste good with brinjal). Remove and serve hot with rice or with chapatis.
I think you’d be blown away by how good this curry tastes. So simple to make and a sure bet for a special meal.
Besan Baingan and Spinach Dal with Rice ~ To Weather the Winter Storm Today
Kitchen notes:
For this recipe the small round purple or green brinjals are best, being sweeter than any other varieties.
If you want, instead of directly adding, first roast the besan-spice mix slowly on another skillet while brinjals are cooking and then sprinkle this fragrant, warm besan-spice mix at the end.
I tried ths recipe yest and my hubby and kid loved it, thank u so much indira for inspiring so many of us, i just try all your recipes every week and they always come out very tasty!!!
thank you and waiting for more n more recipes
padmaja
Comment by Padmaja — January 16, 2007 @ 2:04 am
I did try this and its wonderful!!
Comment by Reddy — January 16, 2007 @ 9:32 am
So simple to make, but this dish is so delicious. This vankaya is now going to be one of the staples in our home. Thanks for the recipe Indira.
Comment by Pavani — January 16, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
I never knew that salted water would make such a difference in preparing eggplant. Thanks for posting this. I used a different recipe but the eggplant came out sweeter than I’ve ever tasted, had to be the brief soak in the salted water.
Yours is a beautiful blog, I check it often.
Comment by Heidi — January 16, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
I love this recipe! I’ve cooked it so many times since I found it on your blog. My variation is adding toasted pine nuts on top. Tastes fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing it with us.
Comment by ammani — January 18, 2007 @ 8:02 am
Tried this recipe & was good as a side dish with curd rice we like it a lot.Thanks for sharing.
Comment by Radhika — January 19, 2007 @ 2:34 pm
Dear Indira,
i am a silent follower of ur blog. but 2de i felt like write 2 u. i am also from (nava nandula) nandyal. Menu deciding was a big problem for me. now,u made it easy. i c ur blog. select one /two and do the same, though in Australia we dont find everything we need but can get on. Gud efforts. keep it up.
Comment by shah — January 19, 2007 @ 5:22 pm
This is what is for dinner: besan baingan with the new favourite, spinach dal, and rice! Andhra rules in this Maharashtrian-Kashmiri household!
Comment by Anita — January 21, 2007 @ 4:04 am
maybe i did something wrong, but… is there perhaps a little water missing from the recipe? I put on the besan spice mix as directed, at the end, but the brinjals were pretty dry-surfaced at that point, and the besan mix did not coat them evenly, instead it stuck together in pasty-gluey bits, and was hard to distribute through the dish… help please! I love the flavors of this dish, just want to get the consistency right.
Hi Katherine,
Sprinkling the besan all over the brinjal pieces usually prevents the pasty-glueyness. If the pieces are too dry, just sprinkle one or two teaspoons of water and cover. Let it steam-cook on low heat for few minutes. So that the besan powder will also gets cooked to brown. The end result for this curry always will be on little bit moist side like you mentioned. You can also see from my photo of curry. Brinjal pieces didnot get uniformly coated with besan. It formed tiny lumps and it’s invariable. But make sure besan fries properly. That’s what make this curry delicious. Hope this helps.
—-Indira
Comment by Katherine — January 24, 2007 @ 5:48 pm
Thanks Indira! I posted that question and then forgot to look for your reply until today, when I went to make the recipe again. Much better this time.
Comment by Katherine — February 1, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
I am not a kind of person who likes to do experiment with baingan, but the picture makes me do so and have to say it was a great attempt, liked the change. Thanks Indira.
Comment by shab — January 3, 2008 @ 6:24 am
Dear Indira,
I suddenly get more fresh indian vegetables at the local indian groceries. I have already tried couple of ridge-gourd recipes. Yesterday we had this interesting variation of Brinjal and already I have made it again for lunch today:) Your recipe collection with our local vegetables is awesome.. simple, no over-powering spices, easy and fast to cook and delicious. Thank you very much. I have never made sorakkai before… now that’s next on my agenda:)
Dear Latha,
Glad to read that you tried and liked this recipe. Thanks for your good words ,and I look forward to your feedback on sorkkai and other recipes.
-Indira
Comment by Latha — February 22, 2008 @ 2:11 am