Over the past weekend, while I was catching up on my feeds, my heart skipped a beat when I saw a beautiful photo of stuffed eggplants on
La Tartine Gourmande. The stunning visual was enough to convince me to make them (heck, isn’t that always the case?)
On my weekend grocery trip, I made sure to buy a firm and plump eggplant to make these stuffed shells of goodness. Grandma’s tip: run your finger over the eggplant and look closely – there shouldn’t be any tiny holes on it or you’ll have company when you cut it open.
I’m telling you, this is one heck of a recipe that’s awfully flavourful and indescribably comforting. You will find yourself take one quick bite after another and will find it hard to share. I promise. What I also like about the recipe is that is excellent to make ahead of time and then reheat just before you want to eat it. This is one comfort food you should not deprive yourself of.
Stuffed Eggplants
Adapted from: Beatrice Peltre
Yield: 2 servings
2 medium or 1 large eggplant
Olive oil (for sprinkling)
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground cumin
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 medium ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 bay leaf
1 cup paneer or whole milk ricotta (I used crumbled paneer)
1/3 cup finely grated parmesan
1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
2 sausages or 2 slices ham, finely diced, or omit this if you’re vegetarian (I used chicken sausages)
1 egg, beaten
Extra fresh cilantro, chopped (for sprinkling)
- Set the oven at 400°F/200°C.
- Halve the eggplant lengthwise. Place them in the baking dish, cut sides up. Drizzle generously with olive oil and season to taste. Bake for 20 minutes or until tender.
- Scoop out the eggplant flesh with a spoon and mash it gently with a fork.
- In a skillet, heat the 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. When it is hot, add the coriander, cumin and chopped garlic to it. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, for 2 minutes, or until the garlic is fragrant.
- Add the tomatoes, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring often, for 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in the eggplant flesh. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for 7 minutes or until the mixture is pulpy and well flavored. Discard the bay leaf.
- Lower the oven temperature to 375°F/190C.
- Stir the paneer/ricotta, parmesan, cilantro, sausages/ham, salt, and pepper into the eggplant mixture. Once the mixture is little cool, stir in the beaten egg. Fill the eggplant shells back with the stuffing. Reserve some of the parmesan for later.
- Return the shells to the baking dish. Sprinkle with olive oil. Bake the eggplant for 30-40 minutes or until the shells are tender when pierced with a skewer. During the last 10 minutes of baking, sprinkle the reserved parmesan on top of the eggplant for a golden, cheesy finish!
- Plate it. Eat it.
Again, go make this – your family will love you more. I’m talking from experience.
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Gnocchi (NYOH-kee) are Italian potato dumplings. They are often dubbed as “smart pasta” because unlike pasta, they rise to the surface when ready. Gnocchi are widely available frozen at supermarkets and are a convenient choice for a quick meal or a side dish. When something is easily available you just doesn’t feel like going through all the trouble of making it from scratch. But when you’ve made your own gnocchi, there is a wonderful sense of accomplishment!
Because gnocchi are so delicate, they are best had with light sauces. Often they are dressed with only melted butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano. The sage, garlic and butter combination is perfect for me because I’m more than happy to have herbs wherever I get the opportunity. Besides, you wouldn’t want to toil in the kitchen after having spent so much time on the gnocchi anyway.
Gnocchi are lighter and more delicate when the potatoes are baked or roasted rather than boiled. That’s a because boiled potatoes will have a much higher water content and therefore, will need to be countered by a higher quantity of flour – resulting in more dense gnocchi. The flour merely does the job of binding the potato together. Thus, the lesser the flour, the lighter the gnocchi.
When you’ve become adept at making gnocchi you could also try potato gnocchi coloured with spinach, carrots, tomato or beetroot.
Gnocchi Recipe
For the gnocchi
1 kg (2 lbs) whole baking potatoes
2 beaten egg yolks
150g (5 oz.) flour
Sage Garlic Butter
A splash of extra virgin olive oil
60g (2 oz.) tablespoons butter
2 – 3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
Sage leaves, cut lengthwise – quantity depends on your taste – I like mine very, very herby!
Garnish
60g (2 oz.) Parmesan shavings
More sage leaves for garnish
Freshly cracked pepper
A drizzle of truffle oil if you feel like indulging 
- Roast and peel the potatoes and mash them while they’re still warm. After you’re done mashing, just fluff them up with a fork to give them some volume. If you have a potato ricer, you could use that instead.Add the flour, egg and salt. Mix by hand until you have a nice a pliable ball of dough. Do not over work the dough.
- Dust your work area with flour. Take the dough, a piece at a time, and roll it out gently with your hands until you have rolls about 1.5cm/0.6″ in diameter. Key here, is do it gently.Cut the tubes of dough into pieces about 2 cms/0.8″ long. Using either the tines of a fork or your fingertip to form an indentation. At this point if you feel you’ve done enough hard work you could just hide the some in the freezer and surprise yourself later! As you are making the gnocchi, place them on flat baking pan, lightly dusted with flour or lined with wax paper. Freeze what you like, them first on a floured or lined tray, then once completely frozen you can put them into a freezer bag.
- To cook, just put the frozen gnocchi into salted water (or add a cube of chicken stock to this for extra flavour) that has come to a rolling boil. Gently drop the gnocchi, a few at a time, into the water. As soon as they rise (about 4-6 minutes) to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon. Drain well.
- Now for the Sage Garlic Butter; in a large pan, heat the extra virgin olive oil, add the butter and garlic and sauté. Make sure the garlic doesn’t turn brown. Add the sage, continue too cook for a minute then add the gnocchi. Sauté till the gnocchi is slightly golden.
- Serve on a plate garnished with parmigiano reggiano shavings, cracked pepper and truffle oil.
This turned out so well, it makes me want to pack my bags and live and cook under the Tuscan sun and learn traditional Italian cooking (the perfect life!).
Helpful tips:
- If it’s going to be a while before your sauce is ready, then remove the cooked gnocchi in a dish and coat with some extra virgin olive oil, else it might stick to each other.
- If the potatoes aren’t warm enough while mashing, heat them over a double boiler until warm again and continue to mash.
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10 days into the month and finally a post! I know I’m very late, but wish you all a wonderful New Year ahead!
A few days ago, I made mutton biryani. I followed the recipe that I’d learnt from a chef at the Dumphukth Restaurant at the ITC Grand Maratha Sheraton. I made certain additions to it, like adding more spices (always a good thing). Also, the biryani can be made of mutton, beef or chicken. Pick your favourite. It takes a while to prepare it all at one go, so what I usually do is keep the birasta ready, or better still marinate it the night before (this is what I do when I have to rush to office the next day).
Here is my version of the recipe:
Mutton Biryani
Ingredients:
1 kg Boneless mutton
5 medium potatoes cut into 4 and deep fried till partially cooked.
3 tomatoes, diced
Marinade:
1½ cups yoghurt
1 cup birasta (browned onions – read ahead for the method of browning)
¼ cup oil
2 tsps Garam Masala powder
½ tsp freshly ground nutmeg
3 black cardamoms
3 star anise
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
2-4 bay leaves
1 cup coriander/parlsey leaves (chopped)
1 cup mint leaves (chopped)
10 slit green chillies (or to taste)
3 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
Salt to taste
For the Rice:
1 kg Basmati rice
1/4th tsp saffron, dry roasted for a few seconds and then dissolved in a little milk
Few drops of rose water
Few drops of kewra water (screwpine essence) – they add to the fragrance of the Basmati rice, but it’s okay if you don’t have it.
Salt to taste
½ cup ghee (clarified butter)
A few table spoons of the mint and parsley mixture as well as some browned onions.
Browning onions:
Using a mandolin slice about 6 medium onions (these will reduce after frying). Salt it and let it stand for a few minutes. Squeeze out the excess water. Deep fry until the colour is that of almonds. Be very careful, you might be tempted to fry it for a few seconds more, but don’t! They will continue to cook and become dark, even after they’re out of the fryer. This is called a birasta. This tastes wonderful when made properly. A little extra time, and you’ve got yourself burnt onions and a little less time will give you a lumpy mass instead of separate strands. I tend to much on them while I’m cooking so I always make a little extra. 
Cooking the biryani:
- Prepare a marinade with all the ingredients and marinate the mutton for at least 1 hour.
- Wash and soak rice for 30 minutes.
- Boil water and add rice to it. Add salt, rose water and screwpine essence.
- Place marinated mutton in a thick bottomed pan, add the tomatoes and potatoes and cook for about 15-20 minutes (if you’re using chicken, you don’t need to cook it at this stage).
- Cook rice till it is 70% done. Strain and while it’s still steaming, spoon layers of rice over the mutton and sprinkle with mint, coriander and browned onions and saffron milk between the layers.
- Pour the melted ghee over it evenly.
- Cover this with a lid and place some heavy weight on it so that no steam can escape.
- Let it cook for about an hour.
- Garnish with fresh coriander, mint, fried cashews and birasta.
Raita
2 cups yoghurt
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp cumin powder
2 medium tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
A handful of chopped coriander
Mix all the above ingredients together and keep it refrigerated.
Serve steaming hot biryani with the cold raita.
22nd Feb, ’08 edit: I added black cardamom and star anise this time to the recipe, and it made it so much more fragrant!
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