Eggplant Bharta and Roti

K's tweet about her search for roti a couple of days ago got me thinking about Indian food and when I think about Indian food I think about eggplants. I flicked through my cookbooks and found a recipe for eggplant bharta in La Dolce Vegan. I also made some roti bread.

Eggplant Bharta

Ingredients

• 1 small eggplant
• 1 small onion
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 5 cm ginger, grated
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• 1 small hot pepper
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (Excluded as I couldn't remember what cilantro was (coriander leaves according to wikipedia) and couldn't be bothered looking it up)

Combine eggplant, onion and stock in a large saucepan on medium-high heat. Cover and cook for 5-7 minutes, until eggplant starts to soften and reduce. Add everything else, except tomatoes and simmer for 2 minutes. Reduce heat and add tomato and cilantro, re-cover, simmer for 5 minutes.

Kramer suggests serving over rice, but I just ate it with roti bread.

Roti bread

• 2 1/2 cups wholegrain flour
• 1 1/4 cup water

Make a well in the flour and gradually pour in the water and mix until dough is formed. Knead for about 8-10 minutes, or less if you can't be bothered. Cover and let dough rest for about 30 mins.

Heat up your frying pan. Put a handful of flour on a plate. Break dough up into about 6 balls. Dip ball of dough into flour and roll out into a thin circle, about 15cm in diameter. Place rolled out dough into your frying pan. Start preparing your next roti. By the time that one is ready, your roti should start bubbling a bit which means it is time to flip it over. Same deal on the other side, but now you can press down firmly on the edges of the roti with a spatula to make the roti puff up (This is the coolest part of making roti bread). The bread is done after that. Set it aside and brush with margarine.

Perhaps the coriander leaves would add more to the flavour, but it wasn't that bad without it. Eating it with the roti was the ideal combination and I'll definitely be making roti more often.

Soundtrack - Bob Dylan at Budokan

Un-Beet-able chocolate cake

Chocolate beetroot cake

Thanks to meveg's post about choc beetroot cupcakes, I found Phillipa O's recipe for chocolate beetroot cake and it is a great one. It is very easy to make and to overeat. Finishing off the leftover raw beetroot reminded me how much nicer fresh beetroot actually is in comparison to the tinned stuff. Is this my first step into raw foodism and "super health"? Hell no!

Roasted eggplant and caramelised onion marinara on Nutmeat

After buying an eggplant and not knowing what to do with it, I turned to my current favourite cook book, Vegan Yum Yum. It supplied me with a kick-arse recipe for the fanciest sauce I have ever made. The challenge was to incorporate it into a protein packed powerhouse of a meal, rather than with the pathetic pasta the book suggested. Rather than using the Fry's chicken-style strips, I opted for a more budget conscious, high protein, choice and went with nutmeat. I fried up a whole can and smothered it with the sauce.

Creamy Polenta with mushrooms

Last week I bought a copy of Colleen Patrick Goudreau's, "The Joy of Vegan Baking", so I decided to make something from her other book, "The Vegan Table".

This is another relatively easy recipe. Basically, make polenta and mix in some soy milk, herbs, margarine, and pepper. Fry up some onions and chuck in the mushrooms and saute until they begin to go limp. Splash in some tamari and set aside. My winesauce (minus the wine) was a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar with margarine melted into it. So easy and delicious. The only problem I had was trying to work fast enough so that the polenta didn't harden up too much by the time the mushrooms and sauce were done. But I can live with that.