Aubergine Curry - Reinventing Food
Reinventing Food is series of blogposts where as a chef, I will share a few of the food discoveries and recipes I am collecting throughout my world tour. Each traditional dish will be the playground for creative cooking and ideation.
In Jodhpur, we were lucky to cross paths with Incredible Krishna Cooking classes. There, I had the chance to cook and practice my indian cooking skills. I learnt 9 different traditional recipes which one of them was the tasteful and warm roasted aubergine curry. It is so delicious!
AUBERGINE CURRY RECIPE(easy cooking level)
Ingredients
1 big aubergine or 2 medium 1/2 medium onion 1 medium tomato
1 teaspoon ginger and garlic paste
1 pinch of chilli powder
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
3 tablespoon of ghee or olive oil
1/2 green chilli (finely chopped)
1 pinch of freshly picked coriander
Salt to your taste
Cooking tools
Fire Stove or Oven
Wok pan
How to make it
1) Char-roast the aubergines on top of your fire stove or in the oven. The idea is to burn the skin and cook the inside. Once completely char-roasted remove its skin. If needed, let the aubergine cool down for a while before peeling it.
2) At the same time, finely dice the onions. Then heat up the ghee in the pan and add onions. Cook it until they get well caramelised.
3) Add ginger garlic paste and roughly chopped aubergine and cook it for another 2 minutes.
4) Then add all spices (turmeric powder, chilli powder and coriander powder) salt and green chilli with a little of water so the spices don't burn. Finish by adding the chopped tomato and cook it until aubergine is soft.
5) Finish by garnishing with the fresh coriander leaves.
INDIAN AUBERGINE ROLLS (intermediate cooking level)
I loved so much the taste of this dish, that I challenged myself to reinvent this dish by keeping all the same ingredients and only adding very few. The idea this time is to keep all the traditional flavours in the dish but on a totally new eating experience.
Ingredients
1 medium aubergine 1/4 medium onion 5 medium tomatoes
1 teaspoon ginger and garlic paste
1 small pinch of chilli powder
1 tablespoon of turmeric powder 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
2 tablespoon ghee or olive oil
1/4 green chilli (finely chopped)
1 handful of freshly picked basil
1 cup of pine nuts
1 cup of rice starch
Salt to your taste
Black pepper to your taste
Cooking tools
Oven
Cooking Pot
Cooking Twine
Mandoline
Silicon mat
How to make it
1) Finely cut the aubergine with the help of a mandoline to get long slices. Then pre-heat the oven at 160ºC and on a silicon mat lay down each aubergine slice. Cook each side for 5 minutes. The idea here is to cook and dehydrate the slices so they become easier to roll later. Avoid baking them too much so they don't become too dry to be rolled.
2) Make the tomato pesto. Boil some water with salt to quickly blanch the tomatoes and remove their skin. In another pot, sweat the onion with some olive oil. Then add the ginger and garlic paste and cook them for around 1 minute. Add the peeled and diced tomatoes with the coriander powder, chilli powder and salt. Let it reduce until all the water has evaporated. Then let it cool down to room temperature.
While you are making the tomato sauce, toast the pine nuts and blend them to medium coarse. Finally mix the tomato sauce with the pine nuts paste and season with black pepper.
3) Making the rolls. Take one aubergine slice and spread the tomato paste on one of sides. Add some basil leaves on top and then roll the aubergine slice. With a cooking twine tighten each edge of the roll to keep the roll firmly closed. You can keep the rolls in the fridge like this before serving them.
4) During service: Mix the rice starch with the turmeric. Cover each roll with this mix and fry them in a hot pan with some ghee. Once well fried, they are ready to be eaten.
Enjoy!
