Over the course of my journeys, I have had the great pleasure of sampling the wonders of cuisines from across the globe. On our recent journey to Sri Lanka, we were able to bring some of those flavours back home to Vienna. One way to offset the gloomy gray of a "Spring" day in Vienna is to loose the spice of an exotic foreign island. So, without further ado, here is how I choose to brighten the day. I am going to show you how to make what turned out to be a brilliant eggplant curry.
Preparing the eggplant for cooking is one of the most important parts of any good eggplant dish. I peel and cut the eggplant to the desired shape or size, in this case into cubes. Place the eggplant cubes in a colander and then salt them generously. The salt draws out the inherent bitterness of the eggplant and closes the spongy pores so that the stuff doesn't soak up too much oil and turn greasy. The eggplant needs to sit under the salt for at least an hour. Don't be stingy with the salt, it is all going to be rinsed off before cooking. This is a good time to chop up ingredients and get ready for the rest of the cooking show. Here we have 500 grams of ripe tomatoes, 200 grams of onions, hot and mild paprika and the wonderful Madras curry powder we brought back from Sri Lanka. Into the the curry powder I added fresh ground black pepper from Kampot, Cambodia and a bit of turmeric. The eggplant has already been salted, rinsed thoroughly, and coated with a mixture of fresh ginger and fresh garlic. Now we are ready to begin!
The eggplant is sautéd for about five minutes over medium heat, keeping the cubes moving all of the time.
Once the eggplant has softened nicely, add the big heap of tomatoes and let them cook for eight minutes. The thinly sliced tomatoes will cook down into a nice paste. Now we are getting to it.
Add the onions and a mix of hot and sweet paprika, cooking the entire mixture for another five minutes to soften the onion. I know that many of you would start with the onion, but resist the urge. We aren't trying to fry the onions here, just to soften them and add to the blend. If you want to make the curry even hotter, you can substitute Kashmiri chili powder. Hey, it's curry, there is not a wrong way, just different ways.
After all of this pan work you should end up with a fairly creamy mix that looks something like this. I can tell you that at this point the kitchen is already smelling damn good.
This next part is really the only tricky bit in the whole process. This is where we mix the curry powder and spices to the Greek yogurt and then add that mixture to the soon-to-be curry. The problem is adding the cold yogurt to the hot eggplant mixture. The yogurt can "split" and leave you with an unattractive mix of curds and liquid.
To avoid splitting your yogurt, let the yogurt warm up to near room temperature.
Before adding the yogurt to the spice bowl, throw a few spoonfuls of the hot liquid into the spice. Not only will it smell fantastic, as it cools it will buffer the temperature, easing the yogurt towards being added to the pan.
Now spoon in your nice thick Greek yogurt.
Blend the spices and the yogurt until you have a nice thick paste.
Slowly add the yogurt and spice mix into the eggplant mixture, stirring constantly and gently until everything is nice and creamy. Reduce the heat to a simmer and place a lid on the pan.
Now is the time for all good Hausmänner to put the rice on and then go have a cigar, or whatever other pursuit floats ones boat. The curry needs to simmer for about 50 minutes, with an occasional stir. In the picture above you will see the sliced chili and chopped coriander leaves. Just before serving the curry, remove from the stove and add the chopped coriander. The last thing before serving is a pinch of garam masala stirred into the lovely curry. The sliced chilies are served raw at the table, to be added by those lucky enough to be sitting down to this feast.
I hoped you enjoyed the little cooking show. If you would like this recipe, I would be happy to write down the specifics and send it on. Now, please excuse me, it's time for a lovely late lunch.
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