I really love this eggplant dish because my late sister in law used to make this for me when I was in Pakistan 20 years ago. I asked her when I come back Inshallah if she would make this for me again and she said she would. The sad thing is she lost her battle to stage 3 cancer last year and I really miss her.
This blog entery is dedicated to her and this yummy dish. This is my favorite number one eggplant dish now. Baba ghanouj which is an Arabic, Middle Eastern eggplant dish was top dog until I had tasted this one. No I am not hating baba ghanouj I really love it still it is that the dish my late sister in law would make so nicely has a special meaning to me.
This dish is broken down in to 3 easy steps and I am going to take you to all of them. It starts with my cast iron skillet which I love so dearly. Number one it lasts a lot longer providing you take care of them properly. They may be very heavy and the food comes out evenly and very well cooked. The food does not stick at all and they are easy to clean up. All I do is I wash them and turn on the burner to dry them. I have 2 of them. One is large and the other is medium size and after they are dry I rub a little bit of almond oil on it to keep them nice. Almond oil can be found at many Indian and Pakistani grocery stores. I know this should have went under the tips section of the blog but anyway now you know how to take care of your cast iron. I also have a cast iron tawa which mean grill. They are a lot better then this poisonous teflon.
Besides the lighter skillets are not good quality they burn the food too quickly that is why I say cast iron is best. Sure it cast iron my cost a little more and it is a worthwhile investment.
First step is to heat up 1/4 cup of corn oil in a cast iron skillet. Turn it down to low and wash and slice 1 large eggplant in to thin slices. Put all of the eggplant slices in a bowl when you are done. Some people would peel their eggplants and I do not recomend this becuse if you do it would not turn out right that it would turn out mushy. I keep the peels on mine and fry in batches of 4 or 5 until they are all brown on all sides. Put the fried eggplant slices in another bowl also the eggplant drinks up the oil while frying and halfway through you may want to add 1 cookingspoon full and finish frying the eggplant.
For second step Make sure you have some oil left after frying the eggplant if not add 1 cookingspoon full. I slice 1 onion or shallot in to half moon slices and add to same cast iron skillet to carmamelize. I add 1 pinch of pink salt and fry the onion or shallot until they are brown. I added 1 pinch of red chili powder or I would add 1 round red chili instead of the chili powder. I crumble it with my bare hands before adding. I add 1 clove of garlic chopped and I add 1 roma tomato that I had chopped in to tiny pieces and cooked down like a mush. By this time the garlic would loose its rawness too. To my dismay the sauce looked a little thin so I fixed it up with a tiny dab of tomato paste and it worked wonders. I returned the fried eggplant pieces this time to the sauce and 2 tbs of water then let the sauce thicken. I folded them in the sauce. It automaticly became layers and I cooked it for 5 more minutes and shut off the stove and covered the skillet and let it sit while I work on the final step.
I got the bowl where I had placed the eggplant in after I fried them since it was empty and added 4 tbs of plain desi yogurt. Desi yogurt can be found at any Indian and Pakistani grocery store. I like this one the best because it is made with just milk only and nothing else. I beat the yogurt until it is smooth and added 2 cloves of garlic that I ground up in my mortar and pestle with 2 tsp of water and I used 2 pinches of either fresh or dried mint. I combined and mixed everything well and went to plating the eggplant dish. I put some of this yogurt sauce on the bottom of this bowl and taken some eggplant out of the skillet and and added it to the yogurt mixture at the bottom. Do not stir at all. I put some more yogurt mixture on top then Mr. Riaz and I ate this with chapati. This is the third and final step and please enjoy.
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