Daal With Eggplant

(Link to Marathi Recipe)

This daal with eggplant is my Ajji's (grandma) recipe. My Ajji was  a great cook. She could whip up a tasty and good looking dish in minutes. This is her recipe too. My father does not eat eggplants so whenever mom made anything with eggplants, it would be mainly stuffed eggplants or bharit and sometimes rassa bhaji. This daal I have eaten mostly at my Ajji's place and started making it after I came here.

It is the perfect thing to do when you have just one eggplant and do not want to make rassa or any other sabji.

3-4 medium sized Eggplants (or 1 large)
3/4 cup Toor daal
Small ball of Tamarind
Small piece of Jaggery
1 tbsp Kanda Lasun Masala (or per taste)
1 tsp Coriander Powder
1/2 tsp Cumin Powder
1 tbsp Coconut (dry or fresh)
2-3 cloves of Garlic
Chopped Cilantro
Salt per taste
Tempering - Mustard seeds, Cumin Seeds, Turmeric, Hing, Curry leaves
Water as needed

Preparation -
Soak tamarind in hot water for 5-10 minutes. Squeeze to extract pulp. 
Wash and cut eggplants into small pieces. Soak these pieces in water for few minutes.
Wash toor daal and add about 2 cups or water. Drain the eggplant and add to the daal.
Cook in the pressure cooker until daal is cooked. Let the cooker cool down completely.
Grind coconut-garlic and little bit of cilantro together.
Heat oil in heavy bottomed utensil. Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds. Add turmeric and hing when mustard seeds start spluttering. Add curry leaves and saute or few seconds.
Add coconut-garlic paste, saute just for a minute or so.
Now add cooked daal-eggplant mixture, kanda-lasun-masala, tamarind pulp, jaggery, salt.
Add water if needed. Boil it on low heat for 3-4 minutes.
Enjoy with rice, jowar roti or chapati.


Tips - 

1. Ajji rarely put jaggery and tamarind and it tasted great too. But I enjoy it more withe the addition of that.
2. We also make same recipe with chopped ridge gourd, its call daal-dodaka (daal - ridge gourd).