Truly Simple Stuffed Brinjals

A couple of years ago, I went on holiday to a resort which served food based on their Ayurvedic beliefs. They did not use cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes and brinjal/eggplant.They did not use red chilli or red chilli powder either. Since I came back, I haven't eaten too many cucumbers or tomatoes and hardly any brinjal at home. (I use the chilli, though.) However, about two weeks ago, I found some good-looking brinjals and bought them. I wanted to make stuffed brinjal, but an easy version that did not involve chopping and grinding.

I took recourse to the Net and all the easy stuffed brinjal recipes that popped up involved chopping onions, shredding coconut, frying/roasting some other ingredients and grinding them all together. I was only willing to scoop ingredients out of their jars, mix them with my hands, stuff the brinjals and shallow fry them - and I needed a recipe that was willing to confirm my vague ideas as to how to do that. I had figured out that I needed gram flour (chick pea flour/besan) to do it because many stuffings are a combination of ingredients that involve fried and ground channa dal or chutney dal. For once, I had besan at home. Then I chanced across a blog that mentioned a stuffed version with ajwain/carom, something to do with Gujarat, but it was just a fleeting glimpse.

It was probably this, but I can't be sure.

That was enough for me to work out what I could do.

What you need
Brinjals/eggplant: 250 gm
Gram flour/besan: 1/2-3/4 cup
Carom seed/ajwain: 1.5 tsp
Cumin powder: 1/2-3/4 tsp
Coriander powder: 1.5-2 tsp Red chilli powder: 1/2 tsp
Salt: 3/4 tsp of ordinary, iodized salt is how much I used
Oil: Enough to coat the surface of the pan you are going to cook the brinjals in. It could be several spoons. I used a smallish pan and my brinjals got crowded in it.

Cut brinjals into four and keep them joined at the stem end.

 Roast the flour on a low flame for a couple of minutes. Cool.

Mix the flour and the spices and stuff the brinjals with the mixture.

Heat the oil and arrange the brinjals carefully in the pan.

Cover with a lid, lower the fire and keep checking to see if they are done on one side.

Then turn them over to the other and cover again.

After 3-4 minutes, take it off the fire.

You will get soft brinjals with delicious insides. Don't expect the stuffing to show very clearly, though, it will coat the insides of the brinjal, unlike the chopped and ground version with onions and coconut which adds to the volume of the dish.

If you have any besan mixture left over, you can make a most delicious kadhi with it. Dilute some curds, mix the besan with it, temper some oil with mustard and curry leaf and add the curd-besan mixture and when it begins to boil, bring it down to a simmer for a couple of minutes and take it off the fire.


Brinjal Gram flour