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Chatpata Bangan

Actually I would love to begin the blog like this by selecting 1 large eggplant, 2 medium, 4 small or 10 baby eggplants to wash and cut the tops off of. Either slice them in thin pieces to be fried on stovetop or place them all in an oven in a roasting pan in an oven preheated to 400F or 200C for 30 minutes. But if you do it on stovetop you have to fry it in batches and either way you coat that cast iron skillet or wok with 1/4 cup of canola, vegetable or corn oil and add 2 tbs of either mustard oil or coconut oil to this and either roast it whole in the oven or if pan frying be sure to cut in to thin slices and fry in batches until they turn brown on each side and soft. I would say if you are oven roasting when the 30 minutes are up then you check to see if they are soft and if not replace that cover and bake an additional 15 minutes then it should be soft enough to mash and turn oven off and set aside.

Now for pan frying after you add your oil of choice and the mustard or coconut oil on top of it in a large cast iron skillet then arrange the eggplant slices on low heat and cover to cook for at least 10 minutes then flip and repeat until all are fried up. If it is on high heat that I noticed the eggplants can drink up lots of oil this way. I made a fried eggplant dish that is from a previous eggplant dish and I had to turn on every fan in the house and open windows to let the smoke out which is a lesson learned because my smoke detector is hair trigger. I live in a small crackerbox apartment and my smoke detector is right outside my bedroom and bathroom doors with my kitchen being very close by. This is something I do not want to repeat and we are all human. I know I am going to get a lot of snickers, gaffaw, chortle, chuckles and even a straight up belly laugh. Ok we are entitled to be a little funny I am not begrudging you.

When the eggplants are done then go ahead and mash them with a potato masher. Again with the cast iron skillet if you panfried or if you oven roasted then you will need to switch to stovetop. Put the same type of oil you used which is the main type and the addition that gives it a wonderful flavor add 1 pinch each of whole mustard seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, 3 curry leaves 1 pinch of hing and watch them sputter in the oil. Add 1 onion or shallot, 1 green chili chopped, in mortar and pestle add 1 small broken piece of amchur, black peppercorns, coriander seeds to grind. add to the onion mixture, add 3 cloves of garlic minced, 1 small piece of tamarind less then marble size soaked in 3 tbs of water, soaking tamarind has to be done in advance before cooking sorry for jumping all over the place. I did not write a rough draft for this and this is coming from the top of my head and sometimes I do this at last minute.

Chop 1 tomato, 1 green chili, add 1 pinch each of paprika, red chili powder, turmeric, chat masala, add 1 Kashmiri chili, 1 whole round red chili or 1 long red chili crumbled and fry in the onion mixture then add green chili and tomato. Add the tamarind and let the tomato curry now forming as the tomato turns mushy. After this mashed fried or oven roasted eggplant to this tomato masala and cook it for 10 minutes covered after you stir it. Great to eat with chapati.

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