This week on Hive top chef the theme is "smoky".
Although as someone who lives on a plant based diet, the first thing that comes to mind is smoked meat. I live in Montreal which is famous for it's smoked meat.
The vegetable I think of when the word "smoky", comes to mind is aubergine or eggplant.
I have been wanting to make this dish ever since I had it for the first time last year, in a vegan restaurant that I had once worked in. They have a general variety of dishes, not specific to any one culture.
When I saw eggplant bartha on the menu, I had to try it. It was an Indian dish done by a Canadian chef in a restaurant owned by people from France.
It was pleasant enough, however, it didn't leave me with a longing for more anytime soon. Why? It just lacked depth and it was on the watery side. The spices were too subtle for my liking and it just wasn't wow. It also was absent of smokiness, which to me is what this dish is all about.
The smoky theme provoked me to recreate the dish to my liking. This is a very simple recipe with not too many crazy ingredients.
The spices used can be found anywhere.
Eggplant bharta
Eggplant 600 grams
Tomato 400 grams
Onion 150 grams
Garlic 50 grams
Ginger 12 grams or whatever you like optional
Chilies 50 grams
Cilantro 10 grams of roots and a small handful of leaves for garnish
Cumin seeds 1 teaspoon
Dried chilies to your liking optional
Coriander powder 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric 1 teaspoon
Chili powder 1 teaspoon
Garam masala 1 teaspoon
Salt to your liking
The amounts I used were weighed out but random. I don't follow a recipe. This was based on researching many recipes then doing my own thing. You could adjust all of these ingredients based on what you like.
The chilies don't need to be added if you can't handle it.
The cooking of the eggplant on a flame is what gives it the boost.
I live in a small downtown apartment with no balcony so I decided to grill the eggplant on a butane camping stove inside. This is probably a bad idea but I did it. I like to live on the edge.
Before putting it on the grill, it needs a bit of preparation.
I cut away the leaves so there was less chance of coming face to face with firefighters. It's happened before when I burnt some toast in the oven. Embarrassing.
I put five slits lengthwise in the eggplant. This was a random number. I suppose four or six would be fine as well. I go by feel.
I used chilies that were fairly big so I sliced them in half.
You ask, where was I going with all of this right? Well some of you know, so I will be preaching to the choir. For those who wonder, I would insert the pepper, and garlic into the slits.
This is a common way to grill the eggplant for this dish.
If you don't like spice don't add the chili of course. Marc and I have a high spice tolerance.
I should have added more pieces of garlic but I only added one in each slit, on a few slits.
Making the slits also helps to get the heat inside to cook the eggplant through. I suppose a larger fire outdoors would not require this.
Brush the eggplant with oil to help char the skin.
Now for the fun part!
I used a grill from my barbecue to sit on top of the burner. I kept the flame on medium high.
It was turned around and flipped to ensure an even roasting.
A success!
What I mean by that is that the fire department was not involved. Yes the smoke alarm went on and off throughout this entire process. I have to admit it was quite intense but fun at the same time.
I decided to stick the tomatoes on the fire for some extra fun. Why not? I got away with the eggplant.
After removing the eggplant and tomatoes from the fire, I covered them in a bowl while I did some other preparation.
This made it easy to remove the skin on both items.
The eggplant can be smashed but I just chopped it into a kind of mash.
The tomatoes were diced and had the seeds removed. I didn't get the tomatoes that I wanted which were Roma tomatoes. These were quite watery so I strained out the seeds and put the juice aside in case I needed it.
I wanted to make sure the eggplant wasn't too watery so I placed it in a sieve. It didn't have much moisture left so I was happy about that.
I started by frying the cumin and chilies first until the cumin was fragrant and starting to pop.
The onions were added and cooked until tender and translucent. After that I added the ginger, garlic, chili and coriander stems.
I had the heat on medium at this point to cook thoroughly without burning.
The ground spices were added. I suppose they could have been added sooner, but it was fine.
The tomatoes were added and cooked through.
I added the eggplant last. Surprisingly the whole thing was well concentrated. I wanted it to be thick and it was.
After cooking for a while I realized I could add the tomato juice that I had strained out earlier. It worked out perfectly. If I didn't keep it, I would have added water but this was better.
I made rice but I also wanted a flatbread. I like to make my own and have it fresh. It's really quite quick to do.
I used half whole wheat and half all purpose flour, a pinch of salt then adding enough water to form a dough. I also added a tablespoon of oil and kneaded until smooth. After resting for 10 minutes I formed balls and rolled out flat. They were put on a griddle and flipped back and forth until golden. I'm no expert at these things but they always turn out pretty good. Anyway this is about the eggplant
I added a salad to this to cool things down.
We like our spice and often add hot sauce to already spicy dishes, but this time we met our match.
This dish is also known as baingan bartha. It was much better than the first one that I had, if I do say so myself. Then again I aim to please myself and that's usually how it gets there. There were no leftovers, except for the rice.
Thank you for stopping by and have a great day.
Photos taken with a Nikon D7500 and are of my ownership