Being a chef and restaurateur, I’m often asked what I usually eat at home, or what is it that I love cooking for friends and family. Is it always something fancy like BBQ meat and skillet cornbread? Flat iron steak with fingerling potatoes? Sandwiches, pasta, burgers?
More often my answer is – there’s nothing like a simple and comforting home cooked meal oozing with warmth for your loved ones. Food doesn’t always need to be fancy. Use fresh ingredients from your pantry, know your spices, marry the flavours, and there you have a beautiful homemade dinner.
Today, while I was coming out of the Subway at Kew Gardens Station on Queen’s Boulevard, in New York, I spotted big and meaty eggplants at a fruit and vegetable stand and thought of making Baingan Bharta (Grilled Eggplant). It pairs really well with Dal Tadka (Lentils) and Steamed Rice – making it a meal that’s perfect for lunch or dinner and is sure to please the palates of your friends and family. I’m also sharing tips on how to cook all three together so it saves you some time. So go ahead and get cooking! Thank me later.
Recipe for Eggplant Bharta, Dal Tadka, and Steamed Rice
1. Put the eggplant to roast over direct flame.
2. While the eggplant is roasting, make the rice.
3. Simultaneously bring to boil the Moong and Masur Dal (1/2 cup each) together over medium flame. Keep stirring at regular intervals to ensure the Dal doesn’t get burnt.
4. Take out the roasted skin from the eggplant.
5. Chop up the pulp of the eggplant.
6. Chop tomatoes, green chilies, garlic, ginger, onions, and cilantro.
7. Bring together the spices – whole jeera (cumin), turmeric powder, cumin powder, red chili powder, and coriander powder.
8. Set up 3 pans on the stove (2 for the Dal Tadka and1 for the Bharta). Add Ghee (clarified butter) to the pans.
9. For the eggplant bharta, first sauté chopped onions, ginger, and garlic.
10. Add the powdered masalas and cook till the oil starts to separate.
11. Add tomatoes, eggplant pulp and season with salt.
12. Cook for 10 minutes and then garnish with cilantro. The eggplant bharta is ready for serving.
13. For the Dal tadka, sauté slices onions, ginger, and garlic.
14. Add Powdered Masalas
15. Cook for 5 minutes.
16. Add tomatoes, green chilies, salt, and cook till tomatoes are soft.
17. Add tadka to the boiled dal. Garnish with cilantro.
18. Tadka Dal is ready to be served.
There you have a simple, tasty and easy to make meal.Bon Appetit!
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Manoj Chopra or “Chops” as he is known to his friends and colleagues is a chef, restaurateur, and hotelier, and has had the joy and satisfaction of cooking, serving and watching people enjoy his food for over 40 years! As a ‘Punjab da puttar’, the joy of hearty, home cooked food is in the genes; all he had to do was to live up to it! Manoj Chopra’s journey has been fascinating, to say the least, and from cooking a meal for one of India’s most famous leaders to a stint in Baghdad, to setting up a hotel in Mumbai to starting an Indian restaurant in San Francisco, “Chops” has done it all and more.
Manoj lives in New York and is a Food Columnist with Travel and Food Network! Sharing his experience and knowledge is something he is hugely passionate about and to be part of the Travel and Food Network “community” gives him a chance to do just that.
