Bagara Baingan

Cooking Time: 15 mins                    Servings:  5
Prepartion Time:  30-40 mins          Category: Maincourse - Veg

Bagara baingan is one of the most popular brinjal/eggplant culinary delicacies from the city of Nizam’s and lives up to the expectation of this cuisine. It is a tamarind based traditional gravy dish sometimes served with the Hyderabadi biryani. Perfect blend of tamarind and all the masalas makes this a most popular dish of my city and is perhaps the best eggplant dish I ever had. To be frank, its my most favourite veg dish. Ingredients like peanut,sesame, roasted onions & desiccated coconut and the tangy flavor of tamarind makes it a unique and classified as typical Hyderabadi cuisine.

These eggplants are first stuffed with flavoured masala paste, then tempered in hot oil and finally simmered in fragrant & spicy tamarind gravy slowly to absorb all of it's flavour thereby acquiring the rich and creamy taste. Almost all the restaurants across Hyderabad serve this dish but nothing beats the one cooked at home. So here is the recipe for this dish straight from my rasoi.

Bagara Baingan

Ingredients
--------------
Deep velvety purple baby eggplants: 10 to 12
Ginger Garlic paste: 1 Tbsp
Oil: 4-5 Tbsp
Red Chilly powder: 2-3 tsp
Turmeric: 1/2 tsp
Tamarind paste: 3 Tbsp
Salt: To taste
Coriander leaves: 1 stick

Masala paste for stuffing/gravy:
-------------------------------------
Onions chopped: 2 cups
Desiccated coconut: 1 cup
Groundnuts/peanuts: 3/4 cup
White sesame seeds: 2 tsps
Cumin seeds: 2 tsps
Fenugreek seeds: 3/4 tsp
Coriander seeds: 1 tsp

Preparation

--------------

• Dry roast all the masala ingredients on a pan for few mins and take it into a blender. Now add chilly powder, turmeric and blend entire mix to a thick paste and keep it aside.
• Slit the eggplants lengthwise into four (make a +) from its base and keep the stem intact. Do not slit it completely upto the stem. Slit around 3/4 th of the size of the eggplant. Else, while frying them, the slit pieces will be separated from the stem and this doesn't look good. The eggplant should be served whole.
• Soak the eggplants in salt water for a minute to retain its deep purple colour. Remove them from water and pat them dry.
• Now neatly stuff the eggplants with the masala paste and keep the remaining paste for the gravy.
• Heat oil in a pan/vessel and place the stuffed eggplants in it. Cook for 10-15 mins until they become tender. To check this, poke with a fork to make sure the eggplants are cooked and simmer the flame. Do not over cook/fry it as it will change the taste of eggplants to sour. (Btw, groundnut oil is what I use and suggest to prepare this dish as it gives the rich flavour and makes the dish perfect).
• Now remove these eggplants into serving plate and keep them aside.
• Add some oil (if required) in the pan and add the remaining masala paste. Add ginger garlic paste when the raw smell disappears. Fry this paste gently until it starts to leave out oil.
• Take the tamarind paste, dilute it a bit and add to this masla paste. Add two small cups of water, salt to taste and mix well. Cook until the dish gets to a boil and starts leaving the oil again.
• Lower the heat and gently place the eggplants into this gravy. Simmer for few more minutes and let the egg plants absorb all the tangy flavour of tamarind and masala paste.
• Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and serve hot.

As I said earlier, bagara baingan is served with Biryani as a side dish. But, I enjoy it more with roti, chapathi and bagara rice. However, in any case this dish is a sure winner :)