Smoked Baingan ka bharta, Mommy-style

Clicked by my brother at Botanical Gardens, Lucknow, circa 2004.

We miss the way people make us feel and she made me feel really special. Sharing today, my mother’s Baingan-ka-bharta recipe… My brother and I were planning to shoot the video but I was so tempted to cook and eat ASAP, and Bhai had a meeting to attend, so, we shall have to make do with my phone-photos. Here’s our favorite smoked bharta recipe... Hope you enjoy it too...

Smoked Baingan-ka-bharta:

Preparation & Cooking time: Total 20 mins.

Serves 3 people (We are voracious eaters of this dish)… We couple it with roTi/chapaati. Ideally we should have daal also, but we do not like anything to interfere with this favourite indulgence, not even coriander! The videos on youtube were also off today!

Ingredients:

2 large Brinjals

5 medium onions/ equal to more than the mass of brinjals

6 Green chillies (hot variety)

Half tea-spoon red chilli powder

Salt 2 teaspoons or to taste

A pinch of turmeric

Coriander leaves for garnishing

2 Table spoons Ghee or oil

Method:

1.       Slit brinjal on four sides to eliminate the possibility of worms, leaving the crown/top on.

2.       Roast the brinjals on open and low flame, carefully cooking it all over. The brinjal needs to leave skin and also become soft inside.

3.       In the meantime, you can chop onions while turning the brinjals around on flame (after every few seconds as the peel comes off), holding the crown.

4.       Keep roasted brinjals on a flat plate.  Now, press the water out of the brinjals by keeping some heavy vessel on them for 5 minutes.

5.       Chop green chilli. (You can also make roTis now if you want the bharta to be smoking hot, like I did).

Roasted, peeled, mashed brinjal

6.        Now, carefully allow to drop all the water from brinjals and take the burnt peels off them.

7.       In a round vessel, mash the brinjals with a fork. The top/crown can be very enjoyable so ensure the part close to it is also cooked well.

phulka/roTi

8.       Warm up ghee or oil in a wok.

9.       Saute onions for 2 seconds only. (We like the ‘khach-khach’ sound and taste of them in bharta!)

1.    Add red chilli, turmeric, mashed brinjal and green chilli and salt.

1.   Mix well, switch the stove off to keep the onions as firm as possible, garnish with chopped coriander and serve with roTi.

P.S. You could add tomatoes and ginger right after onions if you like but the smoked flavour would diminish...

My mother used to also make bharta with boiled brinjals… Then she would definitely add tomatoes, chopped green garlic leaves and also boiled peas.