The Amazing Exploding Eggplant

This morning was eggplant bharta day. My son loves the stuff and I had the opportunity to taste some this week when we went to Montreal to help him paint. He orders it from a little take out restaurant called Tandoori Xpress. I will admit I really liked it so on the way home I picked up an eggplant and decided I'd give it a shot.

So I started with the usual oven roasting of the eggplant. Now normally I poke a bunch of holes in it, put a foil lined cooking sheet on the lower rack and the eggplant on the upper rack. Well this morning I decided to follow the instructions I saw on a website saying that poking holes was not nessessary, obviously that person was a joker!!

About 40 minutes in the oven was how long it took to cook my eggplant. How did I know it was cooked? Well I think the biggest clue was the earth shattering explosion in my oven! My eggplant exploded up with such a force that it actually blew open the oven door!

Lucky for me I was able to salvage 95% of it because it popped opened on the bottom so what ever splattered ended up on the foil.

OK, so the eggplant is done! LOL I let it cool in the fridge for about 1 hour and then moved on to the recipe, which turned out great by the way. I think the take out version was quite a bit more oily so in the long run I prefer mine, just the right amount of heat too!

Eggplant Bharta

1 large eggplant (roasted, cooled, peeled and chopped)
4 tsp. oil (20gr.)
1/2 green pepper
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
3 tbs. tomato paste
3/4 tsp. ground chili
1/4" slice of ginger
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp, ground coriander
1/2 tsp. tumeric
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp garam masala

Start by oven roasting your eggplant for about 45-60 minutes in a 400f oven, you may want to poke holes in it before popping it in the oven. Let cool, peel and chop, set aside.
Put oil in a large non stick pan. Cook the chopped peppers until softened, then remove and set aside also. In the same oil add the onion and garlic and cook over medium heat until softened, add cumin, coriander and tumeric and cook a few minutes longer.
While the onion mixture is cooking add the tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped ginger and chili to a blender and blend just until slightly chunky to almost smooth. Add tomato mixture to pan and cook until reduced by about half. Add the eggplant and cook, stirring and mashing with the back of a wooden spoon until no large chunks remain. Add salt and garam masala during the last 2 minutes.
Serve with rice and naan bread.

Here's Gilles pretending to be happy about yet another vegan meal! LOL