Description
Baingan Bharta is a popular spicy North Indian dish, made with roasted eggplants, sautéed with onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, and lots of aromatic spices. It is loved for its delicious smoky flavor. This recipe includes few essential tips on how to get a tasty Baingan Bharta Recipe!
Scale
Ingredients
To Roast the Eggplant
- 1 large eggplant (baingan)
- 3 garlic cloves
Other Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 1 teaspoon nigella seeds (kalonji)
- 1 medium Onion finely chopped
- 2 tomatoes finely chopped
- 6 garlic cloves minced
- 1 inch ginger piece grated
- 1–2 green chilli finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon red chilli powder
- 1 tablespoon coriander powder
- ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
- ¼ teaspoon garam masala (optional)
- 2 tablespoons coriander leaves chopped
Instructions
To Roast the Eggplant (baingan)
- Wash nicely baingan (eggplant).
- Pat dry the eggplant with a clean kitchen towel.
- Cut each garlic clove into halves.
- Make 6-8 slits in eggplant and insert the halved garlic cloves inside each slit.
- Now keep this on the direct flame for 8-10 minutes.
- Roast the eggplant on the direct flame and roast it by rotating it every 1-2 minutes from all the sides until the skin is blackened and soft from inside.
- (Make sure, while roasting; keep turning it every 2-3 minutes to make sure it’s roasted well on all sides.
- Check it by inserting a knife or fork in it, whether it is roasted completely or not. The knife should go inside the pulp easily.
- If it is not roasted well, roast it for a few more minutes to cook properly.
- Once the baingan is roasted evenly from all sides, cover it with aluminum foil.
- Keep aside and allow it to cool for a few minutes.
- Remove the blackened skin of baingan and dip it into the water to get rid of any extra burnt bits.
- Take out from the water, cut off the stem and chop it finely or mash it.
How to make Bharta
- Heat oil in a pan, add nigella seeds.
- Saute it for few seconds.
- Then add ginger garlic. Stir fry for 30 seconds until the raw smell goes away.
- Add chopped chillies. Stir well.
- Add the chopped onions. Fry until the onions are are soft and translucent.
- Add the tomatoes. Mix well.
- Cook with adding red chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric, and salt.
- Mix everything well.
- Cover and cook until they become soft and pulpy.
- Add the baingan pulp.
- Give a good mix. Cover and cook for another 3-4 minutes while stirring occasionally.
- Add chopped coriander leaves and garam masala over the bharta.
- Serve hot with naan, roti, or other bread.
Notes
- For this recipe, you can use a large purple variety baingan (eggplant). If you use a small variety of eggplant doesn’t have the same taste and texture.
- Instead of roasting eggplant over the flame, you can also roast the baingan into the oven but the taste will differ. You can roast in an oven at 200C for 45-50 minutes. If you want to get the smoky flavor in this bharta dish, roast the eggplant on the stovetop and not into the oven.
- While roasting, adding garlic cloves inside each slit of eggplant gives a very delicious flavor to this bharta.
- It is best to use mustard oil in this recipe, but you can also cook the bharta in any vegetable oil.
- Additionally, you can go with the Dhungar method. It increases the smoky flavor to the bharta dish.
- Category: Main Course
- Cuisine: Indian, North Indian
Keywords: Easy Baingan Bharta Recipe, Smoky Eggplant stir-fry, How to make Brinjal Bharta