This is Baingan ka bharta.Or as some people might want to put it, Baingan ka chokha!
The aubergine mash!
Our homegrown eggplant.The reason why they are called eggplants in the first place is because to a European it looked like goose eggs without the wine purple color. It was named in the middle of the 18th century.
Most commonly cooked in the Bihari kitchen. A favourite palate teaser with dashes of mustard oil, a must in a Bihari kitchen cupboard.
A complete tamsik delight with garlic, onion,lemon juice, coriander greens and green chillies. Its unmatchable in taste and usually had with bhaat, daal and simple aloo ka bhujia.
Here goes the Google find...
This curious comestible (actually a fruit, but eaten as a vegetable) probably has more names in varieties of the English language than any other. That’s because it has been cultivated for a very long time and it has been widely transmitted across the world from its heartland in eastern and southern Asia (the Arabs introduced it to Spain from India as early as the eighth century AD, and the Persians took it to Africa).
The name of eggplant was given it by Europeans in the middle of the eighteenth century because the variety they knew had fruits that were the shape and size of goose eggs. That variety also had fruits that are a whitish or yellowish colour rather than the wine purple that is more familiar to us nowadays. So the sort they knew really did look as though it had fruits like eggs.
In Britain, it is usually called an aubergine, a name which was borrowed through French and Catalan from its Arabic name al-badinjan. That word had reached Arabic through Persian from the Sanskrit vatimgana, which indicates how long it has been cultivated in India. In India, it has in the past been called brinjal, a word which comes from the same Arabic source as British aubergine, but filtered through Portuguese (the current term among English speakers in India is either the Hindi baingan, or aubergine). Some people in the southern states of the US still know it as Guinea squash, a name that commemorates its having been brought there from West Africa in the eighteenth century.
Anyhow, ‘Baingan ka bharta’ is best had when it’s roasted and smoked black on naked fire.
Simmering hot coal would be most preferred if you have the luxury of an old world, native life and an expanse of space and a scurry of manpower.
Baingan ka bharta is exotic when eaten with ‘Litti’.
( some other time)
Its great with puffed rice too.
And in regular meals. Hot and steamy.
So. you stoke a well rounded , well endowed Aubergine on fire with garlic cloves some 4-5 of them pushed inside randomly after some gashes.
Smoke it till it looks like a charred, limp, defeated version of its glistening, waxy deep purple self.
You leave no effort in making it look that way by making sure it’s burnt from all sides.
You immideately put it in cold water. Chip off it’s charred covering..
A word of caution : when you choose your aubergine, make sure it’s well examined. You have to look out for the seedy ones.You don’t want a seedy Baingan bharta on your table!
Phir kya hai?!
A generous dredge of mustard oil over it.
A must have in Bihari kitchen.
Finely chopped onion, garlic, tomatoes, coriander leaves, green chillies salt and a good dash of lemon.
Your Baingan ka bharta is ready to be devoured !
