Eggplant Bharta

This is another recipe from La Dolce Vegan. And it was really simple and quick. Prep to dinner was about 20 minutes, more or less. Of course, that did include a few cheats. I used frozen, chopped onions; bought pre-chopped tomatoes and ginger juice in place of the grated ginger. And the shortcuts didn’t seem to affect the flavor, either. The hardest thing to do was to prep the eggplant. I didn’t salt it, since was not sure it needed that to be done. I am still getting used to cooking with eggplant, this is only my second dish so far. The first was a vegetarian taco filling from Parade Magazine (really good, but makes a ton, so keep it for parties, bottom of the page). Since I wasn’t sure if the skin should be left on or not, I did go ahead and peel the eggplant (if that was wrong, please let me know). The whole thing only takes about 15 minutes to cook and then layer over rice and dinner is on the table.

The best thing about this dish is that the spices are not over done. It is spicy, but not in a really burn your mouth sort of way. In fact if you were to leave out the cayenne and the hot pepper, (dare I suggest) kids might even like this. That is assuming, of course that they can be enticed to try eggplant. And if you don’t like hot and spicy food, then go ahead and leave out the cayenne and the hot pepper. I don’t think it will hurt the dish at all. Especially since the recipe calls for 1 Tbsp of cumin. However, if you don’t like cumin or Indian seasonings, this is not for you.

Now if you don’t have La Dolce Vegan in your cookbook library and want to try this, don’t despair. Just google “eggplant bharta” and I am sure you will find a ton of recipes on the web. They probably will all be somewhat different, so if one doesn’t sound good to you, then keep looking. I am sure you will find one that does.

The really only bad thing about the dish is that it doesn’t photograph very well. Unfortunately, don’t think there is much I can do about that. Haven’t decided what dinner will be tomorrow night, so you will just have to stop by and see. Until then.