Cook the veg separately for the best effect. Don't just lob everything in at once and hope for the best. Different elements require different approaches — the techniques here suit the particular veg I'm using.
One thing before we kick off... They use a weird ingredient in Chettinad — kolpasi — which is in fact a lichen found growing on tree bark. It has a distinctive flavour, hard to substitute. You can order it from specialist Asian shops online or leave it out if you want and use a little extra cinnamon instead.
Serves: 5
Cost per person: 3.60 zl (0.62 GBP, 0.84 Euros, 60 Indian Rupees)
You'll need:
- 1 aubergine
- 1/2 cauliflower
- a 1/2 cup of green beans (I'm using frozen)
- 1-2 onions finely chopped
- 2 tsp ginger garlic paste
- 1 tin of tomatoes
- a glass of coconut cream or milk
- salt
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
- 6 or so tablespoons of coconut oil, more if required
- 10 dried red chillies deseeded
- 1 tsp kolpasi
- 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
- 1/4 tsp black pepper corns
- 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 1-2 pieces of cinnamon
Let's get going!
1. Put the following in a pan: dried red chillies, kolpasi, fenugreek seeds, black pepper corns, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, cinnamon. Gently roast on a low medium flame for 5 minutes.
2. Use a spice or coffee grinder to whizz the spices up into a powder.
3. In a little bowl, mix the turmeric and chilli powder with 1 tsp of salt. Chop up the aubergine and coat with the turmeric/ chilli/ salt mix
4. Let's be authentic here and use coconut oil! Get quite a lot into a hot pan.
5. Shallow fry the aubergines in this oil for around 10 minutes until soft and starting to brown. Remove from the pan, retaining as much oil as possible in the pan, and allow to drain in a sieve placed over a bowl (to catch the flavoured oil which we'll use later to fry the onions in). Aubergines absorb a lot of oil so you might need to keep adding some and you'll know the aubergine is getting there when it starts to give the oil back out in the pan.
6. While the aubergine is cooking, chop up the cauliflower and then shallow fry in the same pan after the aubergines have been removed. Give them around 5-10 minutes or until the cauliflower starts to brown slightly. This allows the cauliflower to soak up some of those spicy flavours from the pan! Remove and sit on top of the aubergines as they drain their oil.
7. Now, some oil will have drained out of the aubergines and into the bowl. Transfer the oil back to the pan and start to sweat down some finely chopped onion.
8. Give the onions around 10 minutes. Keep adding more drained oil as required as you go. Make the ginger garlic paste by grating an inch of ginger with one clove of garlic.
9. Ginger garlic paste in. Fry off for a minute or two. Get that spice powder in now. Stir in and fry off for half a minute.
10. Sort out the tinned tomatoes — i.e. remove any skins etc. Chop fine and get them into that pan!!
11. Cover and leave to cook down for 5 minutes on low. Add the coconut milk/ cream. Cook down for 5 minutes.
12. Frozen green beans — take the edge off in the microwave for a minute.
13. Beans in. Cook on low for 5 minutes
14. Cauliflower in for 3 minutes.
15. Aubergine in and turn off the heat.
16. Serve with rice and enjoy!
Costing:
- aubergine: 4 zl
- cauliflower: 2.50 zl
- beans: 0.50 zl
- tomatoes: 2 zl
- rice for 5 people: 3 zl
- coconut oil: 4 zl
- the rest: 2 zl
total: 18 zl
serves: 5
per person: 3.60 zl
