Whole Aubergines in a Peanut Gravy

 I have prepared something similar to this dish a year ago but probably never blogged about it. I was totally inspired to recreate the dish when my sister-in-law M, shared a few pics with us on some curries she had recently prepared for the family over the weekend. Requested her to share her version with me.

So am gonna almost cut and paste exactly how she did the dish and take you through this.

The choice of brinjals- preferably keep them medium sized or as small aubergines, cut them through in a criss-cross manner from its base without entirely going through the stalk. So you still have the flesh attached to their stalks and set aside.

Initially prepare some peanut powder by roasting a tablespoon of peanuts and grinding them later to a dry paste. Set aside. Then in a sauce pan with a bit of oil in it, sauté a medium sized sliced onion and a tsp. of jeera/cumin seeds. Add fresh ginger garlic paste. let it all cook through well, to this add a chopped tomato and the spices that would go into this mix is a tsp. of  cumin powder, a tsp. and a half of coriander powder, a tsp. of turmeric powder and a tsp. and a half of chilly powder. Allow all this to cook through. Once done and nice and mushy throw in the slit purple brinjals. Cover with a lid and let it merge well with the masala.

  Once they shrivel, add in the set aside peanut powder and stir well, add some water to get the desired consistency for the gravy, add salt to taste followed by a tsp. and a half of garam masala. Again let the pulpy mixture cook under the lid and merge well. Taste and balance the dish with spices or salt just in case there are any inadequacies. Do garnish the final gravy with finely chopped cilantro.

My sister-in-law did mention that if one adds Marathi masala (Goda Masala) to this in the end, it takes the dish a notch further and is really awesome! Well I didn't have that. I may get a sachet from her whenever we meet next. Or maybe one day I would prepare on my own to understand the flavours. She was brought up and raised in Pune hence the influence of Marathi cuisine in her cooking.

This is ideal with rotis. I am very grateful to her for having shared her recipe with me. Thanks dearest M!