Eggplant / Vazhuthananga Mezhkkupuratti

Here's another simple dish from the beautiful eggplant that hardly takes 15 mins from start to finish. Enjoy this dry fry with a simple dal and a bowl of rice to make a perfect thaali (complete platter in Indian) meal.

Ingredients

Eggplant/Vazhuthananga (cubed/Sliced): 1 Cup
Ginger (chopped): 1 teaspoon
Garlic (chopped): 1 teaspoon
Green Chili (slit): 3-4
Curry Leaves: Handful
Fenugreek/Uluva seeds: 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander powder: 1 teaspoons
Turmeric powder: 1 teaspoon
Chilli Powder: 1-2 teaspoons
Pepper: 1/2 teaspoon
Salt to taste
Oil to fry

* We have used the long variety (cucumber shaped) eggplant.

* Here is a tip to enhance the taste of fenugreek in any of your preparation, instead of storing whole fenugreek seeds, give it a slight grind to get a good mix of its powder and chunks.

Heat some oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds, add chopped ginger, garlic, green chillies, curry leaves and the fenugreek seeds. Add the cubed eggplant and saute well. Note that eggplant drinks up quite a bit of oil to cook, so add accordingly. Add all the spices and saute well. Once the eggplant coats well on the spices, take it off from heat and serve hot as a side. Just make sure that the eggplant doesn't get very mushy.