Baingan Bharta - from The Lazy Girl's Cook Book

Ok before I let you in on these super effort saver recipes I need to make sure you know these really important rules. If you want to be a truely SUCCESSFUL lazy housekeeper, or even just a lazy cook then you must NEVER break these rules. 1. Do not EVER talk about your recipes and techniques. People (especially fussy, good-cooks and mother-in-laws) will most definitely be horrified by these recipes. They will scoff at your technique, they will shudder at your ingredients (GARLIC????, MAGGIE MASALA????) they might even refuse to eat your dish. So try and fight to keep your recipe secret. Rest assured however, no matter what seasoned cooks say, these techniques DO work. They've been relished by my mother-in-law, praised by sundry friends who've dropped by for dinner and even earned me a fair bit of fame as a Good Cook. Eeeehahahahaha!

OK now on to the recipe eh?

Baingan Barta

You Need:

1. As much baingan as you want to cook (half a kilo or so?)
2. One onion
3. One green chilli
4. Ginger (optional, paste may also be used)
5. Red chilli powder(optional)
6. Salt (essential)
7. Garam Masala ( Everest) (optional but recommended)
8. Amchur (dry mango powder) (optional, can use lemon instead-or-horrors! tamarind paste;))
10. Kadai or suitable
11. Oil or ghee
12. Coriander leaves. (not optional, no, really this just makes the dish... sigh ok, leave it out at your own peril)

Method:

1. chop off the heads of the baingan and quarter.
2. pressure cook chopped brinjal (dry) (one whistle and left in till the steam has escaped by itself)
3. Chop a medium sized onion into fine cubes (alternatively briefly run in the mixie till coarsely ground)
4. Chop a green chilli, and a bit of ginger if you like.
5. Put a teaspoon and a half of ghee in a suitable kadai (or oil if you're dieting) (try mustard oil to make panju's crawl in gratitude after you, but BEWARE of trying it on a south indian)
6. Put in a teaspoon of garlic paste fry a bit
7. Dump in chopped onion and green chilli. Fry till pinky brown.
8. Meanwhile dump in a tiny dash of turmeric powder, red chilli powder to taste, a half tsp or less of amchur powder and a 3/4 tsp of garam masala and salt to taste
9. Stir fry for two minutes.
10. Put in pressure cooked baingan. Mash and mix well with a flat spoon
11. Fry for at least 2 minutes or long as you like. Put in more ghee if you really don't care about cholestrol and becoming fat.
12. While it's frying and burning a little, chop a bunch of coriander finely and stir in.

That's it.

Squeeze lemon on top if you're feeling adventurous! And prepare to be worshipped. :)

Doormat

Hi. :) I'm not the laziest person you know... just your average slouch. Why do more afterall, when you can get away with doing less? Hehehe. I've been married for say ten months. And I've had to keep house. Now it was sort of fun for the first um week? After which it SUX. So here's the first ever guide to LAZY housekeeping. If there's an easier way, we'll take that. If something can be left out, we'll LEAVE it out! So we have more time to do nothing and less housework staring at us in our faces!