Spice Up Your Meal with an Indian Eggplant Rice Recipe (Vegan)

Sharing my grandmother' tried and tested recipe of yummy eggplant/vangi (in Marathi) /baingan (in Hindi) rice for dinner/lunch. Loaded with Indian spices and flavors.

Type Of Eggplant:

In India, we get multiple type of eggplants.

1. Small egg shaped and sized colored in green-white

2. Small egg shaped and sized colored in purples.

3. Big elongated shaped black skin colored - typically used for Eggplant Bharta Dish (Roasted)

4. Small lemon size dark purple ones without thorns (Nashik)

1st /2nd /3rd type of eggplant can be used for this dish.

Serves: 2-3 person

Time: ~30 mins

Ingredients:

We have 2 steps here. 1st is to prepare the masala powder and next is to cook the rice.

• For Masala Powder:

  • Dry Red Chillies - 10

  • Coriander seeds / Dhaney - 3 tablespoon

  • Split Bengal Gram / Chana Daal - 2 tablespoon

  • Split black gram / Udid Daal - 1 tablespoon

  • Cumin / Jeera - 1 tablespoon

  • Fenugreek / Meethi Seeds - 1 tablespoon

  • Cloves / Lavang - 8 pieces

Step-1: Preparing the masala powder

Dry roast the above measured spices and cool it. Grind them to a fine powder.

** Store the powder in air tight container for future use.

• For Cooking:

  • Rice (Any Quality) - 2 cups. Wash the rice 2 times thoroughly, and let it sit in water for 15 mins. Thereafter strain the water and let the rice sit in strainer till cooking.

  • Green Peas - 1 cup. Optional.

  • Groundnut - 1/2 cup

  • Eggplant/ Vangi/ Baingan - 3-4 small (green/purple) OR 1 big (Black). Medium sized squared diced

  • Oil/Ghee - 3 tablespoon

  • Bay Leaves / Tamalpatri - 2

• Cummin / jeera - 1 teaspoon

• Green Cardamom / green elaichi - 5 pieces

• Onions - 2 medium sized, cut lengthwise

• Green chillies - 2, vertically slitted

• Turmeric / haldi - 1/2 teaspoon

• Lemon Juice - 1 teaspoon

• Hot Water - 4-5 cups (double the quantity of rice taken)

• Salt - as per taste

• Coriander - 1/2 cup for garnishing

• Coconut - handful of shredded coconut for garnishing

**Keep all the ingredients and masala powder ready before you start to cook

Cooking Steps:

1. Take a heavy base utensil/pot for cooking and put it on medium-low flame burner.

2. Once pot is heated, add oil to the pan.

**If you are using ghee for cooking, add 2 spoons of ghee and 1 spoon of oil. This prevents ghee from burning.

3. Add bay leaves, cumin seeds, cardamom, green chillies, turmeric and onions. Sauté till onion turns translucent. **DO NOT BURN the onion (dark brown).

4. Add green peas/groundnuts at this stage and mix thoroughly..

5. Add the prepared masala powder as required. Usually 4-5 tablespoon of powder is enough for 2 cups of rice.

6. Add eggplant pieces and sauté till masala is well coated on all the pieces.

7. Add the rice and mix well.

8. Add lime juice.

9. Add 4 cups of hot water, salt as per taste and mix well.

10. Cover it with lid and cook the rice on medium flame for 15-20 mins

** Keep check on the rice, add more hot water if needed.

11. Turn off gas once rice is properly cooked.

12. Garnish it with coriander and shredded coconut.

13. Serve hot with ghee or curd raita.

TA-DA..!!

** For garnishing, you can use fried cashews or deep fried onions as well.

---

Hope you try and relish this dish. Let me know your feedback / suggestions.

HAPPY COOKING...!!!