Loading...Kathiyawadi Dahi Baingan, in simple terms, means brinjals cooked with curd. It is a simple and delicious recipe that forms part of many Indian cuisines.
The ingredients in every cuisine are more or less the same but with different cooking styles and techniques. It consists of brinjals/eggplants, yoghurt, and aromatic Indian spices.
This recipe is ideal to have for lunch and dinner. You can have this dish with naan, paratha, roti, or rice. The best part of this recipe is it does not contain tomato or /and onion as its base.
How Is It Different From Other Dahi Baingan Recipes?
The common concept of the dahi baingan recipe is to cut and marinate the brinjals, later frying them or cooking them with tempering. Then either brinjal is added to the curd bowl, or the curd is poured into the pan and cooked for a minute.
Our method of cooking Kathiyawadi Dahi Baingan is nothing like that. Instead, we are making a filling of spices and other ingredients and some curd, stuffing, and cooking the brinjal afterwards with more yoghurt/curd.
Likewise, different methods are adapted to cook this dish in various cuisines. The most known version of this dish is in Odia cuisine. The brinjal is fried and placed in the curd bowl with the tempering of panch phoron ingredients.
Some cook the curd with tempering in a pan. While others fry and cook just the brinjals in a pan and keep them aside. Then they add curd and spice powders to a bowl. Later these both will be combined and served.
TR’s Extra shots
- Discolouring – Once in contact with air after cutting, brinjal starts discolouring or black. Put the brinjals in salt water for 10 minutes to prevent this from happening.
- Worms – Make sure to check the baingan from the inside. You may pass on the worms inside.
- Dry Roasting – If you dry roast all the dry ingredients like peanuts or seeds on medium-low flame, you can get the best flavours.
- Spices – You can adjust the seasonings in the filling as per your wishes. Black salt, cumin powder, or even pomegranate powder is great to add for flavours.
- Brinjals – The size of brinjals does not matter in the overall process. But it will be better to use medium-sized brinjals.
- Masala – You can add any ready-made special masala in the stuffing to get more taste.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I add more flavours to my dahi baingan?
Yes, you can add more flavours as per your taste. In addition, you can add any spice powder to the stuffing to suit your taste buds.
If you like sweetness, add a little bit of sugar to add sweetness to the dish and cut the sharp flavours. A little bit of jaggery in the stuffing will do as well.
Or, in case you want to make it tangier, add some tamarind or tamarind pulp to the filling. Lemon juice can be an option as well but not too much. We are already using curd.
What is a Panch Phoron?
Panch Phoron is a whole spice blend consisting of five primary ingredients. It is used in regions like Bangladesh, Eastern India, and the Northeastern India region, especially in Odisha, West Bengal, the Mithila region of India, and Nepal.
The ingredients used in this are fenugreek seeds, nigella seed, cumin seed, black mustard seed and fennel seeds. This spice is readily available in the market. Therefore, please include them in cooking the brinjals.
The brinjals take too much time to cook. How should I avoid that?
Use softer medium-sized brinjals in this recipe as they cook quickly and taste better. Hence, please avoid using any other size of brinjals as they could take longer to cook.
You can also shallow fry the brinjals or steam up to 80% after stuffing them and then cook them with curd later.
The final gravy is too watery. What to do?
It could happen if the curd has more water content or is watery. Make sure to drain the water from the curd. If it is still runny, you can add a little bit of gram flour to adjust the consistency.
Cooking the ingredients on high flame to reduce water consistency is a more common option, but there is a possibility of curd getting curdled. Hence it is not recommended.
