Hot, clean, and vibrant, a mouth-popping stew for scooping up with soft, warm naan or, if you prefer, rice. Should you want something richer and less spicy, then stir in a carton of yogurt, about 1 cup (250g), at the end and simmer for a further seven or eight minutes.
Recipe information
Yield
enough for 4
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Cut the stems from the eggplants and discard. Slice each fruit in half lengthwise, then again, then cut the long strips into short, fat chunks. Put these in a colander and sprinkle generously with sea salt. Let them sit for a good thirty minutes.
Step 2
Peel the ginger and chop it finely, then do the same with the garlic. Put them into a blender (or a food processor) along with the lemon juice. Whiz till you have a smoothish purée. This may take a bit of doing.
Step 3
Coarsely chop the tomatoes. Slice the chiles thinly, without removing the seeds; you want the dish to be really quite spicy. Coarsely chop the cilantro.
Step 4
Once the eggplants have relaxed, rinse them of their salt and pat them dry. Heat the oil in a large pan, then, when it starts to sizzle, add the eggplants, letting them color on their cut edges, turning them so that they are golden all over.
Step 5
Add the garlic and ginger paste and stir to coat. Mix in the tomatoes and chiles, shortly followed by the cilantro and 4 tablespoons of water. Season with salt and let simmer gently for four or five minutes, until the eggplants have softened further. Taste for seasoning, check the eggplants for tenderness—they should be soft to the point of collapse—and serve with warm naan to mop it up.
