Brinjal pepper kuzhambu

Its been a while since my last post. I have been crazy busy with my studies and work here. My to go food has been a quick dal or one pot mixed rice, something that takes less than 30 minutes to cook. After a lot of easy instant cooking and eating outs, I finally decided to cook a proper south Indian meal for a change last weekend and came up with this brinjal pepper kuzhambu recipe. I made some crispy lady’sfinger (bhindi) and hot piping rasam to go with it. Hopefully my cooking habits should get back to normal soon and I should get back to posting more recipes 🙂 What has made me really happy is that despite my long absence, my blog traffic has been pretty decent and there have been few friends inquiring me about my long gap in the blogging world. That really gave me the boost and encouragement to get back to cooking/blogging! So fingers crossed.

I’m also super excited about my Puerto rico trip in a couple of days! Finally a long deserved vacation! Looking forward to tasting some tasty local cuisine and some fun in the sun. More about my trip in my next post:)

Ingredients:

• 7-8 baby brinjals cut length wise
• one goose berry sized tamarind
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 11/2 tsp sambar powder
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp urad dal
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• a pinch of asafoetida
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• gingelly oil as needed
• salt to taste

For the pepper spice powder

• 1 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp chana dal
• 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp urad dal
• 2-3 red chillies (use as per spice levels)
• 5-6 curry leaves
• 1/8th tsp fenugreek seeds

Method:

Roast all the ingredients for the spice powder and grind it into a powder and set aside.

Extract tamarind juice by soaking the tamarind in hot water for 15-20 minutes.

In a pan, add 1 tbsp gingelly oil. When hot, add the mustard seeds, cumin, curry leaves, asafoetida, urad dal, turmeric powder and let the mustard sizzle.

Then add the chopped onions and saute until soft and transparent. Then add the brinjals, little salt and saute for a minute. Then add the tamarind extract, 1 cup or more water as required, sambar powder and bring it to a boil.

When the raw smell of the tamarind is gone, add the spice powder, salt as required and boil for a minute. (optional- you can add a pinch of jaggery at the end for a little sweetness)

Serve hot with potato curry and papad!