Vegan Eggplant Curry

The first thing to know when attempting this dish is that eggplants left in ovens will explode.  When they explode they sound like a bomb going off at the house next door.  This frightens your dogs (if you happen to have dogs and if you don’t have dogs, why don’t you have dogs?  They’re lovely animals!) and they will wander to the door wondering about the very LOUD BOOM that seems to have come from the house next door.

Only it did not come from the house next door.  It came from right inside your very own oven and opening the oven door will reveal one exploded eggplant, the contents of which are now coating all the interior surfaces of your oven with eggplant bits hanging like mistletoe from the racks.  It’s quite a site, believe me.  I attempted a photo, but got only a blurry mess.  Probably for the better.

So, now that we have that bit of advice about exploding eggplants out of the way, shall we move on to how to actually make this dish?  You’re all prepared now and can not claim that I did not warn you about the lurking possible dangers!

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant
1 medium size onion
4 or 5 tomatoes
ghee or oil
1 tablespoon fresh ginger finely chopped
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds (brown or black)
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
1/4 teaspoon paprika
fresh cilantro and yogurt (vegan if you’re vegan and want yogurt) for garnish

Heat oven to 350F.  Pierce the eggplant all around with a fork (lest you want an exploding eggplant) and then place on the middle rack of the heated oven.  Let it bake for about 20 minutes.  It’s “done” when it’s wrinkly!   Take it out of the oven and set aside.

While the eggplant is cooking, you can prepare the other vegetables.  Chop the garlic and ginger.  Chop the onion into a small dice.  Chop the tomatoes into a small dice, as well, saving the juice.

After the eggplant has been removed from the oven, take a large heavy frying pan.  Over medium heat, use either ghee (if non-vegan) or canola oil to just coat the bottom, then add in the cumin and mustard seeds.  Stir for about 30 seconds.  Before they start to “pop” add in the onions, garlic and ginger and the other spices.  Stir to coat everything well and then continue to stir until the onions are just browned.

Next you’re going to want to add in your eggplant.  Cut open the eggplant and scrape out the insides.  You don’t want the skin, just the cooked insides.  All of it.  It easily just slides right out and into the pan.  Smash the eggplant around with the onion and other spices.  You want to really mash it.

Now, once it is sufficiently mashed and blended with the onions and other spices, add in the tomatoes.  Again, mix and mash.  Keeping the heat at medium.  Things will be bubbling.  At this point some people like to throw in other vegetables like peas, but I don’t particularly like peas in this dish so I just stick with eggplant and tomatoes.  However, feel free to experiment!

Now, some of you will be finished and ready to eat at this point.  Totally okay if you are one of those people.  However, for me, there’s one more step.  The consistency is still a bit too “chunky” here for my liking, so I take 2/3 of the mixture and throw it in the Cuisinart (or blender) and puree it.  Then it gets mixed back in with the original 1/3 and allowed to simmer on the stove top for a few more minutes so all the flavors blend.

This curry is especially nice over some toasted basmati rice.  Garnished with a dollop of yogurt and some fresh cilantro.  Of course it might also be nice with some chopped cashews, too, if you’ve got some on hand.  Just for some crunch!

Of course, I used all organic ingredients when making this dish.  Start to finish time including the baking of the exploding eggplant was 30 minutes.  I could easily see preparing the eggplant ahead of time and having it “on hand” to throw this together in a quick 15 minutes.  Especially if doing toasted basmati rice as that takes no time at all.

Music that was playing while I exploded eggplants and made this fabulous food?  Imogen Heap’s Speak for Yourself. I can’t recommend that particular album enough.  Totally fab.

Enjoy!!  And please share your variations.  I’m always interested to know what you discover.