Aubergine Curry or Coq Curry

Couple weeks ago there was a discussion on my high school whats app group about recipes typical to Pondicherry, my home town. There is a book devoted to them, The Pondicherry Kitchen by Lourdes Tirouvanziam-Louis. As schools are closed for 2 weeks in consideration of Corona Virus, I have more time to try out new recipes for my family.
This is a typical Tamil dish that is made with the little purple Indian eggplants. We call it ennai kathirikai kuzhambu because the eggplants are shallow fried in few tablespoons of oil first. I made a few modifications to the recipe from the book. No one knows why it is called Coq Curry,but this is what the Creoles or descendants of Europeans in Pondicherry used to call this.

Ingredients:
6 Table spoons sesame oil
10 small purple Indian eggplants, slit into 4 parts from the top,keeping the calyx intact.
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
5-6 curry leaves
30 pink pearl onions, peeled and kept whole(I chopped them)
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 Tablespoon sambhar powder
1 teaspoon red chili powder
2 Tablespoon tamarind pulp
salt to taste
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 1/2 cups coconut milk

Method:
1. Heat oil in a broad pan, shallow fry aubergine on medium heat until golden brown. Remove from pan and set aside.

2. In the same pan, add fenugreek seeds. Add curry leaves and chopped onion. Cook until translucent. Add chopped tomatoes and cook till it turns pulpy.

3. Add red chili powder, sambhar powder and salt.  Stir in tamarind pulp.  Cover and cook for 5 minutes until tamarind smell leaves.

4. Stir in coconut milk and brown sugar. Add the eggplants and cook on low heat for 5 minutes. Check for salt.

5. Remove from Stove. Serve hot with rice. It would taste good with Dosa or roti as well.

Note: 
This dish can be made with drumsticks (muringa vegetable) and okra.
The original recipe called for use of vadagam, a special dried balls made from mixture of onion, garlic, lentil and rice flour paste that is dried under the sun and preserved for the year and used in various dishes to bring out flavor. I did not use this as my mom does not like it.