The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Sookhe bharwan baingan is a delicious side dish of spice-stuffed baby eggplants. It uses few ingredients – no onion, garlic or tomatoes – and can be put together easily with basic Indian spices.

(more…)

Baingan masala – an easy and delicious curry to make with baby eggplant. Unlike the more intricate recipes that involve stuffing the eggplant or dry-roasting the spices, this baingan masala recipe is beginner-friendly and relies on accessible ingredients. Try it!

(more…)

Dress up the slender green eggplant with the heat of green chilies, the spice of coriander and the sweetness of golden onions.

(more…)

For a really good baingan bharta, getting the eggplant perfectly roasted is half the battle won. And for a perfectly roasted eggplant, the ingredients you need most are patience and balance – patience in cooking the eggplant on a low, open flame through till the core, balancing the heat all around without charring, leaving no spot raw or burnt.

The proportion of other ingredients and spices, the duration of post-roasting sautéing, can vary, but if the heart of the dish – the mashed eggplant – is nicely done, baingan bharta turns out delicious.

With that thought, on to my baingan bharta recipe in all its smoky splendor…

(more…)

When you have really fresh long green eggplant on hand, capitalize on the goodness of its insides. Cook it in a way that retains its juices. Ditch chopping and cubing, go for slitting and spicing. This recipe of spice-lined long green eggplant curry shows how.

(more…)

Baingan bhaja is so easy to make that this post barely qualifies as a "recipe" – and yet it is one of those dishes of which the taste belies the simplicity.

A staple side dish with meals in a typical Bihari home, a quickly made add-on to liven up a dal-chawal-chokha meal. That’s baingan bhaja for you.

(more…)

As promised in the last post on moong dal salad, here comes my recipe for eggplant tomato curry.

I most often use the fat purple eggplant for bharta, but on long workdays the whole roasting process seems too labor-intensive and I want to make a curry that moves from kitchen to dinner table quickly. This no-onion-no-garlic recipe is a godsend on such days. (more…)