Friday, March 14, 2008

"VoW -Brinjal " Eggplant Pizza , Brinjal with chhole & Spring Onion with brinjals

Chanaa- baingan (Eggplant with Chickpeas) .............
I heard this dish Name few years ago (when I was not cooking even ) One of our neighbour auntie used to cook this dish and sometime she used to send the dishes she makes to our home. Well, that's a common love of neighbors in India , Don't know people here ever know that any such thing and such love does exists for neighbors :) . Ever since then it was in my memory ,I don't know how to cook this dish , neither I tried it from anyone's recipe, basically my liking with both chhole and brinjal lead me to make this dish ,I just thought to give it a try - and try was successful. :~ .Easy to cook, when you have boiled chickpeas on hand.


Ingredients :
1 cup chopped brinjals
1 cup boiled chickpeas
2 tsp oil
1 large tomato cut into cubes
1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1 tsp cumin-corinader seeds powder
1/2 tsp Garam Masala
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp red chili powder
A pinch of asafoetida powder
salt to taste
Lime juice 1 tsp or according to taste .

Recipe:
Heat oil in a kadhai or Pan , when little hot add cumin seeds sot it, when they start spluttering , add asafoetida powder and turmeric powder to it . Immediately add chopped brinjals to it and mix well , cook on medium flame until brinjal is little soft and translucent , add boiled chickpeas to it. At this stage before adding check that chickpeas are boiled enough, take a single one of boiled one and test it with pressing little, it should be easily mashed when little pressure is applied.
Mix well together, add chopped tomatoes . If i curry looks too dry to cook, add little water to it , add garam masala, chili powder , cumin coriander powder and salt to it , mix it well until tomato turn in to gravy like consistency.

Turn off the heat , sprinkle little bit of lime juice to this and mix well , serve hot with rice , Roti Or paratha . Tastes best next day specially when accompanied with puri.

Chana Baingan ( chickpeas with eggplant ) turn out really very nice , and upto what I expected it to be. A must try for Eggplant lover. This is a twist to normal curry of Chhole. Quick , tasty and a dish which suits to party food /pot luck party.



Eggplant Pizza is a dish I am fond of too much these days. I never heard of this when I was in India . Although I like eggplant , initially I was reluctant to accept this dish . Pizza with eggplant- iieekkk...... this was my reaction when I first read it in menu at a pizza shop(Mario's Pizzeria ) here.

D told me that he likes it too much , and one day I tried a bite from his plates..Not that I was in love with that dish since that day but my initial reaction was it not a bad combo. I can eat it little bit more, as if I was doing that Pizza a favor by eating it :D. Then as I tried it more times I like it little more everytime ,sometimes due to taste , then for its texture ,then for its being less cheesy and now is the day when I love it for everything it is :O .
I tried it with ready made boboli's pizza crust. It is good and with ready made pizza crust on had it is really easy to make within few minutes.
I don't know how they really process eggplant ot make it , I relied on my own idea for that , and I loved it , so for me it works :) .D like it too . So let me say for both of us this is a quick and much loved dish so that is good too ;) .Here is howI make it .

Recipe :
Cut big 1/2 inch thick slices from a tender big eggplant. deep it in salted water for a while. In a bowl, take 2 tsp corn flour and little bit water to make its batter like consistency as we make for Pakoda , add salt to that and deep eggplant slices in it , in a flat pan shallow fry this slices with enough oil to cook it till golden brown , keep it aside and let it cool . Yo ucan choose to deep fry them too instead of shallow frying .
On pizza crust spread even layer of tomato sauce of your liking ,I used Maggi's hot and sweet tomato sauce. Over that spread shredded Parmesan cheese . use it according your liking , I just don't like it , so I use the least possible of it. place eggplant slices around the pizza all over , sprinkle some more cheese and cook it in pre heat oven for 8-10 minute on 400 F temp.

It will turn crispy from base and cheese will turn slight brown . Choose baking time as per the crispiness you wish to have and serve hot cutting it in slices.

One more dish Which I made last week and couldn't resist to share here is Eggplant with Spring Onion. the recipe is almost he same as Methi baingan . taste is much different and lovely color too :) .

One more I missed to share here is a loving and very rare seen combo of Baingan with Gobi . (Plz plz don't shout on me :y for cooking these much eggplant ,- I didn't cook it all in one day :D , I was being fairly Nice to D and presented this one by one in each week ) , I couldn't make it possible to cook it for this event , but I do cook it many times , till now I think you will be able to cook it with your imagination with the high dose given by me to cook different eggplant dishes :D . Cook it and share soon with us before I publish it here for some other ongoing event , Probabilities are high with many event around :O.

Ahhh............ non -eggplant lovers now be happy I am not going to post any more dishes with brinjal/eggplant here now for sometime at least.... but hey don't be so happy still you have to bear me with huge round up of Eggplant dishes ;) . Do you hate me for cooking these much with Brinjals/eggplants ??? See Cham doesn't think so :) . Lovely Cham of Spice club passed on the E Award (for Excellent blog) , and she thinks I make my blog creatively colorful with the dishes I make :) . Cham, thanks a lot for this lovely award , I will surely tell you how do I handle the entries I got for the event of this blog, But for that will you help me with the round up ??? ;)




9 comments:

FH said...

Love chhole with brinjals, new combo to me, yum! Love the thin crust Pizza. Good job so far Pooja, LOVE Brinjals and looking forward to the round up now!:)

Enjoy the well deserved award, hugs to you. I am off the laptop now, need rest after y'day's ruckus!:D

indosungod said...

Eggplants in any dish works for me. The eggplant in Pizza has me intrigued, looks good. As for the other dishes looks delcious, how can anything with eggplant not be?

Mythreyee said...

Never have heard of eggplant in chole. Nice twist to the usual recipe. Thanks.

musical said...

Love all of these recipes! I would love to try the gobhi and eggplant combinations, as a bake or stir-fry! How do you make it? Lovely methi-baingan combination too, it sure would have tasted so good!

Nanditha Prabhu said...

congrats on the award... yo have an excellent blog for sure...
are you bend upon turning me into an eggplant lover....you have almost succeeded .. i want to try these new combos...

Uma said...

You sure are a great fan of eggplants, Pooja! Lovely recipes. I didn't know we could make so many dishes with eggplants. Wow! Great posts. Congrats on your award!

Kalai said...

Wonderful recipes, Pooja! Congrats on the well deserved award! :)

AnuZi said...

Pooja,

I am sorry to miss out this fantastic event but I will be sure to participate next month. And until then can I just say how much I love your blog!! hehe.

Pooja said...

Asha,
D likes it a lot , so I succeed in my first try to make this. :) .
round up is already published, will email you that award ans code for that too later. enjoy the time well with family. I feel good to hear that.
Indosungod ,
you too love eggplant , wow . pizza tastes good too , if you love eggplant try it.
Mythreyee,,
I also heard it first time few year back only. but really a nice dish to try .

Musical,
OD it stir-fry way. i didnt try it baked yet. methi baingan is a regular shaak in our gujarati homes. a sure shot winner among all other recipe in our kitchen :)).

Nanditha,
thanks you :) . R u really turning to be a eggplant lover ? some body , cheers for me ........:)).
Uma,,
just 2 years ago i was not liking it much. now I do :) . Thats why this event is for . Yo know how many dis wew can cook with a single veggie.
Kalai,,
thank you dear.
Anuzi,
No pressure at all. dont feel bad for that. do it for delight :) .
Just be happy in whatever you do.

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