Bagara Baingan
Bagara Baingan is an extremely popular eggplant or brinjal dish from Hyderabad. Hyderabad is quite famous for its Nawabi cuisine which makes use of a blend of various spices, yet not very overpowering. When we think of Nawabi cuisine, we generally tend to associate with the non-vegetarian dishes, but you would be surprised to know that there are some equally scrumptious vegetarian delicacies. One such dish is Bagara Baingan.
Bagara Baingan, originally referred as Baghaar-e-baingan originated during the Mughal era and became quite popular in Hyderabad. ‘Baghaar’ means tempering and baingan refers to brinjal in Urdu. This dish is now synonymous with the popular vegetarian dishes offered from Hyderabad and I would say tops the list.
I think brinjal is a veggie which one either loves to the core or completely hates it and perhaps there is no mid-way here! But trust me, even the ones who are not big fans of brinjal, would definitely love this dish.
What is Bagara Baingan?
As the name suggests, Eggplant or Brinjal is the star of the dish here and there are no surprises! The base for the gravy is quite unusual and not just the normal onion and tomato based masala which is used in most Indian curries. The eggplants are shallow fried in oil and then simmered in a peanut, sesame, poppy seeds and coconut based gravy. The recipe also uses some fried onion paste which adds to the richness of the dish.
This gravy has a nutty flavour due to the use of the above ingredients, and the sweetness from the fried onions, the tartness from tamarind and the spice from the chillies and chilli powder produces a wonderfully balanced flavour.
Making Bagara baingan is a slightly time consuming process as there are various steps involved in cooking this dish. The eggplants are to be washed, dried and carefully slit and shallow fried first. The onions need to be cooked till they are golden brown and then turned into a fine paste. The other main ingredients like peanuts, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, fenugreek seeds and coconut need to be dry roasted on low flame till aromatic and then turned into a fine paste. I also like making the ginger garlic paste fresh for this dish as it adds a lot of flavour. But trust me when you taste this dish, you would definitely feel that all this effort was worth it!
Serving Suggestions
Bagara Baingan is typically served with Bagara Rice which is a subtly flavoured basmati rice, cooked with some onions and whole spices. You could also serve this dish with any other Indian bread and should taste fab.
Bagara Baingan
Ingredients
- 600 gms Brinjal or Eggplant small sized purple ones
- 3 Onions medium sized
- 1 Tomato medium sized
- Tamarind lemon sized soaked in half cup water
- 2 sprigs Curry Leaves
- 5 cloves Garlic
- 1 inch Ginger
- 2 Green Chillies
- ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
- 3 tsp Kashmiri red Chilli Powder
- ¼ tsp Asafoetida
- 1 tsp Dhaniya or Coriander Powder
- 2 tbsp Fresh Coriander finely chopped
- 5 tbsp Oil
- Oil for frying eggplants
- Salt to taste
For Masala Paste
- 2 tbsp Peanuts
- 2 tbsp Poppy Seeds
- 2 tbsp White Sesame Seeds
- 1 tsp Onion Seeds or Kalonji
- ¼ tsp Methi or Fenugreek Seeds
- 3 tbsp Coconut grated
Instructions
- Wash the brinjal and dry well using a kitchen towel. Carefully slit four ways only till the middle.
- Shallow fry the brinjals in oil on medium flame till golden brown. Fry the brinjal immediately after slitting them else they would turn black.
- Sauté 3 roughly chopped onion in some oil on medium flame till nice and brown.
- Cool the onions and grind with 2 tablespoons of water to a fine paste
- For the main masala, dry roast separately all the above mentioned ingredients (masala paste) on low flame till it slightly changes colour and you get an aroma. Cool the ingredients.
- Grind the masala ingredients in a mixer to a smooth paste. Add some water only after grinding the ingredients dry initially, else the masala would not be ground smooth.
- Pound garlic, ginger, half green chilli, a pinch of salt and few leaves of coriander in pestle and mortar to make a fine paste.
- In a kadai, heat 5 tablespoons oil, add the freshly minced ginger garlic paste, few curry leaves, 1 slit green chilli and add the onion paste. Sauté for 2 minutes.
- Now add one finely chopped tomato and also the pulp extracted from the soaked tamarind. Let it come to a gentle boil. Later add asafoetida, turmeric powder, Kashmiri red chilli powder, dhaniya powder and some salt and cook till the oil separates.
- Next add the ground masala and around 1 cup water and cook again till the oil separates.
- Next add the shallow fried brinjals and cover and cook for around 8 to 10 minutes on a medium flame. Keep stirring in between as the nutty mixture tends to settle at bottom. Also add water if required. Cook till you see oil floating on top.
- Finally garnish with fresh chopped coriander.
Notes
- Pick the small sized, bright purple brinjals for this dish. If you are not able to find them, you could also use the light purple one with lines. If you find only the large aubergine, then you cut in large chunks and substitute for the small brinjals.
- Make sure to wipe the brinjals well after washing before frying, else the oil could sputter. The brinjals must not be fully cooked after frying, as it would be cooked further in the gravy.
- Be careful while dry roasting the nuts, as they could easily burn quickly. So roast them on a low flame one by one.
- Blend the nuts to a very fine paste, else the texture of the gravy would not be smooth.
- Do not brown the onions on high flame, as it would not yield the desired sweetness. So cook the onions on medium flame till they turn brown. You could add some salt to accelerate the browning.
- Freshly ground ginger garlic paste works best for this dish, however you could also use the readymade ginger garlic paste.
- This dish traditionally demands slightly higher amount of oil, as the oil must float on top of the gravy. However if you are health conscious, then you could cut down the amount of oil as required.
- This gravy is usually kept slightly thick, however you could adjust the consistency as per your liking. Do note that the gravy tends to become slightly thicker once cooled, hence adjust the water accordingly while cooking.
