Eggplant Channa Gravy

Where does the time go? I haven't been able to update my blog or visit yours either...I am going on vacation next week and i thought i will post something to say i am here :-) Hoping to blog and blog hop regularly after that. Though i am not leaving comments on your blogs, i am up2date on your recipes, thanks to Reader :-)

This has been in my blog for a long time...I created it for FIL eggplant and i think there are several FIL events that have taken place after that and here it was still in my draft!! I decided to post it today.

I learnt this from my mom. Kind of :) My mom makes awesome Rasavangi - a type of gravy with Eggplants. I asked her to make it once when she was here and she added channa to it and it was totally yum! As usual, i was only concentrating on pigging on it and never bothered to take the recipe. I keep forgetting to take the recipe from her too whenever i talk to her over the phone, but one day i had this craving to have it immediately and i created my own recipe and it was quite close to it. I was pretty impressed with my own guessing ability :) Just FYI, i still haven't remembered to ask her for the recipe :-O



Ingredients :

Eggplants - 10 (medium sized ones that you get in indian store)
Channa daal - 1 cup
Channa - 1/2 cup (pressure cooked)
Curry powder - 3 spoons (or more :))
Tamarind paste - 1/2 spoon (or the equivalent water extracted from fresh tamarind)
Salt to taste
Coconut - 3 spoons (optional)
Mustard seeds, urad daal, hing and curry leaves for seasoning.



Method :


Grind the curry powder and coconut together with little water and keep aside.
Pressure cook channa and channa daal. Steam the eggplants in microwave till they are soft. Add the eggplants to the cooked channa and daal. Add tamarind water, salt and curry paste. If you decide to avoid coconut, just add the curry powder directly to the eggplants. Cook it till the raw smell disappears. Takes approximately 5 minutes since the curry powder does not have much raw smell as the ingredients are roasted before grinding. Season with mustard seeds, urad daal, hing and curry leaves. Can add red chillies too.
This is a quick fix for me as i usually have cooked channa in the freezer.
Tastes good with Rice and Roti.