Bihari Style Aloo Baingan

Bihari cuisine is a lot similar to North Indian cuisine,but also has a great influence from other eastern states of India like West Bengal and Orissa. Cooking with fish is very popuar in Bihar, the river fish. Cooking with mustard and mustard oil is a norm. I like to learn about various regional cuisines and try them out. A good friend of mine introduced me to Bihari style cooking. I'm not a big fan of mustard oil. I substitute it with olive oil. Today I made aloo baingan, Bihari style. It is basically, potato and eggplant cooked in mustard and garlic paste. dinner was awesome. I must thank my friend for the recipe. I made a few changes to it.

Ingredinets:

12 baby potatoes, quartered

12 round eggplant, quarterd

4 green chili, slit

6-8 cloves of garlic,peeled

4 Tablespoon yellow mustard or 2 Tablespoon mustard powder

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds(methi)

1 Tablespoon coriander powder

2 teaspoon red chili powder

1 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon garam masala

salt to taste

Method:

1. Shallow fry potatoes and eggplant separately in 2 Tbsp oil until 3/4 cooked. Keep aside. Leave the oil in the pan.

2. If using whole mustard, blend to a coarse powder; add garlic and pulse until smooth. 

3. Heat pan with left over oil over medium heat. Add  cumin and fenugreek. Turn the heat to low and saute for a minute. Add the garlic paste and cook for 4 minutes or until oil separates.Mix coriander powder, chili powder, turmeric powder and garam masala with little water to make a paste. Stir this paste into the pan. Add 2 cups of water and salt. Turn the heat up to mediun and cook for 7 minutes or until oil separates.

4. Gently stir in potato and eggplant. Add more water if required.

 Remove from stove. Serve warm with phulka roti.

Notes:
Any kind of eggplant could be used in this recipe. I prefer to use the small Indian purple eggplant. In this recipe I used Thai green eggplant. 

I use red and yellow baby potato. Any potato can be used