09 September, 2008

Baby Brinjal Masala Palya: Simply Delicious

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Baby Brinjal Masala Palya

What happens when someone hosts 3 blog events back to back, creating a hatrick!!!
She checks her mail box religiously every morning as soon as she gets up only to realise it’s all over… At last!!!

Not that I have had any second thoughts about hosting the events. In fact I loved being a gracious, ahem, hostess and making sure all my guests were enjoying the party. Well, they were the best parties I have ever hosted, I think! But in the end I did have this small voice in my head shouting I might have over done it this time. I kind of mixed up with the dates and committed myself to host events before I could realise I was about to host three much loved blog events back to back. With ever increasing workload with two new and very important projects to work on, I was literally walking on a tight rope balancing work on my left hand, home on right hand and blog events on my head ;) So no more parties for few more months but you are very welcome to come here and have some home food :)

Talking of home food, I have been cooking some simple foods these days. Not many ingredients and no complex techniques. I have been experimenting with few spices, tweaking here and there till I am satisfied with the end result. One such recipe is Stir Fried Baby Green Brinjals or Baby Geen Brinjal Masala Palya. Recent trip to down south, I bought few lovely green baby brinjals which are otherwise not available in my neck of woods. The speciality of these brinjals is that they have thin lovely green skin with lots of seeds within. They take very little time to cook compared to the purple baby eggplants and taste oh-so-wonderful. I didn’t want them to over cook so the option of stuffing them was out of the window. After thinking for a while I opted to slice them and stir fry with just few spices which would bring out the flavour of these green beauties.

The recipe is inspired by recent post of Dondakaya Vepudu but with my own twist. I have used same ingredients for the spice blend but also added few other ingredients to give it little smoky and complex flavours. Addition to cumin, dry red chillies and roasted peanuts, I also added garlic, tamarind and little jaggery. The result was simply delicious where I ended up eating half the content right from the pan. The pungent garlic, sweet jaggery, sour tamarind and smoky dry red chillies were pure pleasure to be experienced. And the best part was hubby dear is allergic to eggplants, so I had it all for myself;) You can try same spice blend with other vegetables like Ivy Gourd/Tindora or even purple eggplants and I am sure it will taste equally good.

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Baby Brinjals

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Green Brinjal Masala Palya (Baby Green Brinjal/Eggplants stir fried with roasted spices)
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Serves: 3-4
Ingredients:
6-8 Baby Green Brinjals, washed and towel dried
2-3 Garlic Flakes, finely sliced
½ tsp Turmeric Powder
Salt to taste

For Tempering/Tadka:
1-1½ tbsp Oil
½ tsp Mustard Seeds
¾ tsp Jeera/Cumin Seeds
½ tbsp Channa Dal/Split Bengal Gram
½ tbsp Urad Dal/Split Black Gram
2 Dry Red Chillies
Big pinch of Hing/Asafoetida
Few Curry Leaves

To be Roasted & Ground to Fine Powder:
1 tsp Jeera/Cumin Seeds
5-6 Dry Red Chillies, stems removed and halved (Adjust acc to taste. I used Byadagi Chillies)
2 cloves of Garlic, finely chopped
1½ -2 tbsp Roasted Peanuts, skins removed or leave it as it is
1 small marble sized Tamarind Pulp/½ tsp Tamarind Paste
1 tsp Jaggery/Brown sugar
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Baby Brinjal Masala Palya

Method:
Remove the stems of baby brinjals and cut it vertically in the middle. Slice each halves into 1 cm slices. Place the sliced brinjals in a vessel filled with cold water till required. Immersing brinjals in cold water helps in preventing discolouration.
To make spice powder, heat few drops of oil in a pan and add cumin seeds, halved chilles and finely chopped garlic. Roast them in low heat for a minute till garlic turns light brown and cumin seeds too turn light brown. Let it cool down a bit before you proceed to next step.
Place them in a mixer along with roasted peanuts, tamarind pulp and jaggery and grind into fine powder without adding any water. Keep this aside till needed.
Heat oil in a same pan and add channa dal, urad dal, mustard, dry red chillies and hing. Sauté it on medium flame till mustard starts to pop and splutter.
Now add cumin seeds, sliced garlic and curry leaves and sauté till cumin, dal and garlic turns light golden brown.
Drain water from sliced brinjal pieces and add them to the pan. Increase the heat and stir fry them continously for about 5 mins. Add turmeric powder and salt to taste and give it a good stir for another 5 mins.
Mix spice blend and stir fry for another 3-5 mins till all the flavours blend well and brinjal pieces are cooked to tender.
Serve this delicious stir fry with steaming bowl of Rice/Chapatti and Rasam/Dal/Plain Yogurt and enjoy.

37 comments:

  1. where in uk did u find them supriya........tell me and i'll rush

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  2. But u ve done a wonderful round-up :)
    For those green babies, I just need to go to the corner chinese store to get a basket full! Only the seed will be bothering me!
    Simple and tasty curry.

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  3. hehe seriously did you check> aftereffects of hosting I guess...

    Lovely presentation of the dish.

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  4. the red chillies look so yum :) i love brinjals/eggplants!

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  5. Hey Sia lovely twist to the traditional palya. enna all time fav veggie is badane..

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  6. You do need a break girl. Enjoy the silence after all those events.

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  7. Lol....I happened to read the title and somehow the page scrolled to the secondlast pic of this post..i got confused coz the name indicates a recipe with brinjals and the pic appears to be more like that of Guava,than brinjal.....never seen green ones....so when i scrolled it up again i couldn't help but laugh about,how food pics could be deceptive
    Nice recipe,never thought of this way of making brinjals

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  8. They almost resembles guava slices in the second photo!

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  9. Don't worry about parties..give me home food anyday...those are really cute brinjals :-)

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  10. lovely! Mouth watering! A wonderful recipe. Might try it with my larger ones. never tried it before with peanuts and daal temperings.

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  11. lol, looks like u like brinjals as much as i do Priya. i found them in one of teh indian shops in during our recent trip to Wembly.

    u r one lucky girl Cham. we have to travel miles together to get them. infact this was the first time i had found green brinjals here in UK.

    Rachel, is there any article on aftereffects of blog hosting by any chance? he he...

    thank u Nags :)

    oh ho, u r another badane lover. welcome to our brinjal lover club SMN ;)

    i knew u would say that Jyo. he he... yeah, no more event hosting for few months :)

    Alka, u r right. brinajls does look so much like guava. another fruit which i love a lot. we do get guava here but they taste aweful compared to the ones we get bk in India. u know the ones with chilli powder and salt drizzled on. total yummo...

    ee lo, ek aur guava ladki. he he... I agree with u Sra.

    Suni, they are indeed cute. i was so happy when i found these little gems when we went to Wembly last month.

    PG, give it a try and see how you like it. :) if you are a brinjal and peanut lovers like me, then u r sure to fall in love with this dish.

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  12. I'm not sure I've ever seen brinjals in the States. We have several types of eggplant here though, so I'll have to try this. It looks absolutely wonderful.

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  13. hey, howz it going? those green baby brinjals look so cute :) us sure hv a plethora of brinjal reipes, don't ya ;)

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  14. I loved the pic! The recipe looks great too :) I wish I could find baby brinjals here to try this dish out.

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  15. this is tooooo good Sia. It is tempting me very much. and I can feel water in my mouth. very good.

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  16. this is tooooo good Sia. It is tempting me very much. and I can feel water in my mouth. very good.

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  17. Lovely recipe....love to make diff varities palya in brinjal..

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  18. this looks so tasty. the colours look lovely. i have never tried green brinjals, this should taste good with paranthas. nice recipe.and ya i guess u shld take it easy a bit, hatts off to u though, for balancing everything perfectly

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  19. I agree with you, at times ai wud be in no mood to cook something elaborate, n i wud like some simple anna saaru with some palya .. heavenly ... i liked ur version of badnekai palya .. looks great ..

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  20. that's looking so nice and join in the chicken event going in my blog!

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  21. you indeed need some break :) I can imagine you going and checking the emails, after hosting 3 events in a row, lol..

    Love your brinjal palya, deliciously simple :)

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  22. The recipe is fantastic.
    This is my first time here... u have a lovely space!!
    I am jus a week old in this blogsphere...Jus popped in to say a hi!

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  23. I love brinjals like anything!!!Looks so delicious Sia!

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  24. oh, oh, oh! the curry look so mouth-watering Sia! Lovely pics as usual.

    Reg. my dal curry recipe: Sorry for the confusion. I used toor dal for the curry. I updated the same in the recipe too.

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  25. delicious entry..lovly presentation..

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  26. Susan, You will find small purple varities in any indian stores.if not you can use usual purple eggplants and it will work fine. make sure you cut them into thin slices.

    can't help it Richa. I am one big time brinjal lover ;)

    try with normal purple ones you get A & N and they will work just fine.

    Thank you Bhawana :)

    then this one if for you Vanamala. its quite different from the usual palya we make and very delicious.

    thank you, notyet100

    it tastes best with chapatti or plain rice with yogurt/dal/rasam. give it s try Karuna. and thank u :)

    and i second ur thoughts vegetable platter :)

    thank you, Srilekha for event invi but i am a vegetarian. so can't participate in ur chicken event.

    he he... it was 3 months of fun and frolic:) thank u Sujatha

    warm welcome to Monsoon Spice, Spices 'n aroma and thank u for ur compliments :)

    thank you Raks.

    thank u for clarifying my doubts Uma. sometime we do forget something or the other while posting the recipes and it happened to me also:)

    thank you Suma :)

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  27. Looks very nice and tempting as i love brinjals. love to have this with dal and rasam.

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  28. you know what i dont like the green ones.. infact i made it only once and i guess i didnt make it the right way... but urs looks plain n simple... especially the red chillies makes it tempting...

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  29. ehmm..was wondering what happened to you!...you have a mail!..:))

    that brinjal looks nice..though the chopped ones look more like gauva..heheh

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  30. Vow, baingan is my favourite and with this subji, it's really mouthwatering. Thanks for the recipe Sia.

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  31. hmmmmmmmmmmm
    yah i stay in huddersfeild and wembly is a lonng travel,but will try to go...........atleasy for those cutie pies.

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  32. I love those baby green brinjals, and lucky for me, they are available at my local Asian grocery store. This palya looks just delicious, Sia.

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  33. hey brinjal queen!! I see that your new cam is working wonders!!

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  34. sending u one plate of badane palya with rice and dal to u Prema ;)

    then it's ahigh time u tried it again dear Swati. how have u been? haven't seen u blogging for quite some time. hope all is well at ur end.

    i donno how u manage with all those events Valli. u r a true star and we should call u event queen;)
    mail? haven't received any.

    u r welcome S & K. i hope u get some time to try this one:)

    can u mail me at sia[at]monsoonspice[dot]com Priya?

    u r one lucky girl to get them so easily Vaish. if u r planning to come to UK i might as well ask u to bring one sackful of these little gems :)

    LOL, brinjal queen? who me? u crack me up Coffee. hw have u been? haven't seen u online since long time.

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  35. Love green brinjals over the purple ones anyday! and these look delicious!

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  36. Hi Sia,

    I prepared this yesterday without the garlic and it still tasted nice. My inlaws do not eat garlic, so I made it without it.
    Thanks, it tasted good. Like your husband, mine too is allergic to eggplants and I ate it all!

    Neela

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