It says that summer starts on Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day. So officially summer has ended. Out of four seasons in east coast, I love the fall most. Not only leaves are of different colors, but also weather is nice. It’s neither sweaty hot nor freezing cold. We were on Montreal for our vacation over the Labor Day weekend. Montreal is beautiful and I clicked some hdr shots there.
Not to mention I gained some pounds after eating French and Canadian cuisine. So after coming back to Boston, my main goal is to loose weight and eats delicious food at home mostly. So I reduced of eating out from two times a week to once a week.
Whenever someone was visiting us or ma is in mood for special food, we used to get eggplant shiraji at our lunch. She used to serve this with white basmati rice, roasted yellow lentil dal, thinly sliced potato fry, fish, mutton and many more. As I said before her dishes are much more better and flavorful than mine. First because, she uses stone mortar which we call shil-nora. Which looks like this –
Second, she has fresh ingredients from Farmer’s market. Also, she spends lot of time cooking food in medium flame(in bengali we call kashano).
So when I got fresh eggplant from Farmer’s market in Montreal, I could not think of making anything else than my mom’s signature dish – begun shiraji. I don’t know if Nabab Siraj ud-Daulah ate this this or why it’s called shiraji.
Recipe for Begun Shiraji or shahi eggplant
Fried red onion is totally optional. If you want to store it, don’t add fried red onion. If you want the taste like original, use freshly shredded coconut. Do not use mustard powder, at least you can dry grind it – right? I used the big eggplant we get in local Trader Joe’s. You can use whatever kind you like.
This is not very watery dish. Make it little thick gravy and enjoy with dal and rice.
- Eggplant – 1 big eggplant
- black mustard – 1 tsp
- yellow mustard – 1 tsp
- Oil – 2 tbsp
- Frozen shredded coconut – 1/4 cup
- 4-5 Green chillies – slitted
- 1/4 tsp – red chilli powder
- 1/4 tsp – turmeric powder
- salt
- For tempering
- whole black mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp – for tempering
- curry leaves – 6-7
- For garnish(optional)
- 1/2 medium onion – thinly sliced
- 1/2 tbsp oil
- 2-3 green chillies – thinly sliced
- Frozen shredded coconut – 1 tbsp
- Cut the eggplant in long shape. Marinate or mix them with salt and turmeric powder.
- Dry grind the mustard seeds.
- Shallow fry eggplant pieces with 1.5 tbsp oil. Eggplant requires a lot of oil to fry. Mom gave a special tip for it – cover the pot with a lid and fry at medium-low heat.
- Take it out of the pan and keep it on plate.
- Add 1/2 tbsp more oil to the pan. Add few mustard seeds.
- When mustard seeds start splattering add the curry leaves.
- For turmeric and chili powder – make a paste of them with little bit water. Add that to the oil.
- Add mustard powder paste (add water to make it paste) to the oil and shredded coconut. DO NOT MAKE PASTE OF MUSTARD POWDER AND COCONUT.
- Add slitted green chillies at this point. If you need, add little water. Remember gravy should be thick – not watery.
- When this is boiled (should not be more than 4-5 minutes on medium heat), add the eggplant.
- Cook for another 2-3 minutes.
- Close the flame.
- Garnish with shredded coconut, slitted green chillies and fried onion.
For fried onion:
- Add 1/2 tbsp oil.
- Fry thinly sliced onion to golden brown with little bit salt.
