Eggplant Curry

After feeling down all day (another job application rejected) I decided it was time to indulge and make a nice rice and curry for dinner. I've also been totally inspired by the Facebook group "SRI LANKAN FOOD LOVERS ACROSS THE WORLD" they post the most delicious pictures of the food they make. I have days when my mouth just waters and I have to go to the kitchen and grab a cookie and a cup of tea. But even that is sad because the cookie's are store bought and the tea is made via a tea bag :(

The recipe I'm going to post here is one that I came up with all alone! I was inspired by my aunt's eggplant curry, which was delicious, and I was trying to replicate it. It took me a long while to realize that, no, I was not going to be able to replicate it, but what I had come up with was pretty okay. In fact its terribly annoying when I make it because however much I make it gets all eaten up. Frying eggplant takes forEVER and then to see it being consumed within one meal is a bit depressing. I wish it would last for at least two meals!

This recipe serves 6 - 8 people when served together with a couple of other curries. How long it takes will depend totally on how you deep fry your eggplant!

So you'll find a detailed description of how to make it and then a link to a pdf with the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 kg	Eggplant (preferably the Asian or Japanese variety)
	Salt
1-2 L	Oil, for deep frying
125 g	Onion, finely sliced
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/2 tsp	Dill seeds
250 g	Tomato, diced
1/2 tsp	Turmeric
1/2 - 1 tsp	Chili pieces
1/2 tsp	Salt
3 heaped tbsp	Maggie coconut milk powder mixed with 2 tbsp water (or 5 tbsp coconut cream)
2 tbsp	Vinegar
1 tsp	Roasted curry powder

Method:

First cut the eggplant into wedges as shown in the picture. Unfortunately, it's really difficult for me to get proper Sri Lankan eggplants. Mostly all that is available is the Italian variety. It's so much easier to cut the thin Asian eggplants. If each piece has a bit of the skin on it, it stops the vegetable from turning to mush. But one has to make do with what is available, sigh...

Once you've chopped up all the eggplant put it in a colander and liberally sprinkle salt over it. Mix it well so that all the veggie has some salt on it. If you remember, have the time, do this well in advance and let the eggplant sit for about an hour. This will remove all the yucky stuff from it. Now if you are like me and have only just decided that you want to cook eggplant for dinner, don't sweat. Most eggplants don't have the "kahata" that has to be removed and taste fine even if you don't let them sit in salt.

Once they've sat for long enough rinse them and then pat them dry with paper towels. If you don't remove the water they will just take longer to deep fry and the oil will spit. Now heat up your oil to around the temperature you use to make fries. On my deep fryer (which broke recently, aarrgghh!) I used the hottest setting and but since I had to do this in a saucepan I put my stove top onto it's highest setting. I used about a liter of oil and it took forever (I'm guessing about 60 to 90 minutes) for me to get all the eggplant fried to the desired crispiness. It ended up looking like this.

So while my eggplant was doing all it's sitting in salt and it's frying I got the other things ready. (I also cooked a pot of dahl, a potato curry and fried some papadum. My little angel made the rice for me. It took her forever but I didn't care those eggplant took forever too.)

I finely chopped the onion and stuck it in a bowl together with the curry leaves and the dill seeds (since I was going to fry these three things together anyway).

Next I diced my tomatoes. If you don't have nice fresh red ones you can also use canned ones (or if you are in a real pinch ketchup!).

I then took the biggest wok I have and heated up a tablespoon of oil on very high heat. Into that went the onions, curry leaves and dill seeds and I cooked it until the onions were soft. Once they were done in went the diced tomatoes, salt, turmeric and chili pieces. I stirred it all up and left it to cook until it turned into a nice paste. Some times I don't cook it so long, but today I had time because the eggplant took so long to fry without a deep-fryer.

Gosh, now the rest is pretty simple. Add the fried eggplant and stir it up. Get everything coated with the sauce and then add the vinegar. I use white vinegar but you can use which ever you like, the taste will just be a little bit different. Be careful if you are using concentrated vinegar, best to try a little at a time until you get the desired sourness. Stir everything up and then add the coconut milk. The coconut milk has to be really thick. I really like to use the top part of canned coconut milk but I'm not having any luck getting my favourite canned coconut milk. Which is surprisingly a local supermarket brand which has no additional chemicals and is 80% coconut fat. With that I only need about 3 tablespoons of milk. So I'm back to using Maggie piti kala pol kiri (coconut milk powder). I make sure I dissolve it in luke warm water otherwise it gets lumpy.

My, I'm just remembering how it was when that stuff first hit the market in SL. It was a total uproar. The housewives loved it and the husbands hated it. I remember not being able to tell the difference back then. I also remember one of my colleagues, who was my mothers age, telling us all proudly how her husband could not tell the difference although he claimed he could. She just kept the pack hidden from him!! Now I can tell the difference but unfortunately I'm not up for scrapping coconut every time I need a rice and curry fix.

Add the coconut milk into the curry, stir quickly bringing to the boil and then take off the heat. Sprinkle over the roasted curry powder and it's ready to serve. (We always mix in the curry powder because the kids don't like getting lumps of it.)

When this baby cools down all the oil comes to the surface so make sure it's served hot. And please beware this is a very oily curry.