Vankaya (Brinjal) Pachadi

This past year I’ve been mostly AWOL from my online presence for a lot of reasons. And getting back to blogging is something i wish to focus on this year. A huge development that did take place was the growth of my kitchen garden. I became a part of a group of gardeners here in Bangalore who encouraged to grow-what-you-eat-and-eat-what-you-grow! My focus is to be healthy, and a great way of doing that is to eat organic foods. Adn the best way I found to achieve that, is to grow organic!! 🙂

Today’s recipe is made using vankaya that I grow in my garden!

There are 2 varieties of vankaya pachadi in Telugu cuisine. One is the way I will describe below. The other is one that Telugu cuisine shares with other Indian regions and is called baingan-ka-bharta. Hopefully, I’ll get around to featuring that too soon!

While baingan ka bharta relies on the violet colored brinjals, this pachadi can be made with any variety. That is a blessing, given that my kitchen garden doesn’t feature the violet ones (yet). What I do have are these 2 kinds of brinjal:

Veggies from my garden!

The picture was taken along with other produce from my garden that day. I’ve used the single big whitish vankaya in this recipe.

So here goes!

Vankaya pachadi

 

Ingredients:

• Brinjal/eggplant/vankaya – 1 large (or abt 100 gm)
• green chillies – 10-12
• red chillies – 5
• Tamarind – about 1/2 lemon size (approximately)
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Turmeric – 1/2 tsp
• Cooking oil – 2 tbsp
• Seasoning: mustard seeds (aavalu) – 1 tsp, urad dal (mina pappu) – 1 tsp, fenugreek seeds (menthulu) 1/3tsp, asafoetida  (inguva) – 1tsp

Method:

• In a lidded saucepan, pour in the oil and place the uncut vankaya in it. The saucepan needs to be deep enough for the lid to set properly after planing the vankaya.
• Keep turning the vankaya time to time to ensure the whole thing in braised. The skin will seem to split a bit, or at least part from the body. When lightly pressed, the skin will fold into the vankaya.
• Remove from the saucepan, retaining the oil. Set the vankaya aside for cooling in the final serving dish.
• Add the seasoning into the oil. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the red and green chillies and let them stay in the oil till all the chillies start changing color.
• Take off the flame immediately and add the washed tamarind, turmeric and salt, and set aside to cool.
• Once cool, grind the seasoning into a fine paste.
• Peel the skin off the cooled vankaya. This will actually peel off easily if the vankaya has been braised properly.
• Mash the peeled vankaya lightly. You may opt to keep pieces or mash the whole thing finely.
• Mix the seasoning paste into the mashed vankaya welland set aside for some time.

The pachadi is best served with hot rice and ghee! 🙂

Vankai Pappu

I’ve made this particualr dal only once before… and it definitely tasted good even on the first try. Simply because its simple, and is a great option if you’re bored with all the other dal options in the kitchen. 🙂

Vankai Pappu

Vankai (brinjal)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup kandi pappu (toor dal)
• 5 medium size vankai
• lime-sized ball of tamarind, soaked
• 8-10 green chillies
• 1 tsp salt
• 1tsp chilli powder
• Tadka: aavalu (mustard seeds), jeera, mina pappu (urad dal), red chilli

Method:

• Cook the dal, chopped green chillies and vankai chopped into long pieces of 6 or 9.
• In the meantime, squeeze the juice from the soaked tamarind and keep ready.
• Once the dal has cooked, mash the dal and chillies well while keeping the vankai pieces intact.
• Add the tamarind juice, salt, chilli powder and mix well
• cook for 10 mins or till excess water dries up
• In a small wok, heat 1 tsp oil and add the tadka.
• Once the aavalu start popping, add to the dal and mix
• Cook the dal for a couple of minutes more and then take off flame.

Serve hot with rice and ghee.

Vankaya Kura – with Kura Podi

This particular recipe is very easy, and is handy at times when you don’t really want to spend too much time in the kitchen! 😉

This recipe uses kura podi (https://teluguveggie.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/kura-podi/), and takes only abt 20 minutes to prepare.

Ingredients:
4-5 vankaya (brinjals/eggplant)
5 spoons of kura podi
3 tsp oil
1/4tsp turmeric
pinch of salt

Method:

• Chop the vankaya into 4 parts each. Keep the pieces as similar in size as possible, and keep in a dish of water till needed.
• Heat the oil in a wok, and when it starts to heat up, add the vankaya.
• Add the salt and turmeric and mix well.
• Put on a lid, and let it braise. Keep checking every 2 mins to ensure the vankaya is done.
• When the vankaya skin is soft to touch i.e. makes a light indent when pressed, add the kura podi.
• Mix well to ensure the podi covers all the pieces.
• Cover again, and let it cook for 2 mins. Turn off the gas when the podi and vankaya starts to stick to the wok.

Serve hot with rice and dal.