Eggplant Tomato Curry

When domestic eggplants finally come into season and I can get them at the store for less than three bucks a pound, a kind of eggplant mania sets in.

This is really the same as my mania for asparagus, tomatoes, avocados, summer squashes, winter squashes...

I have always been curious about using the pressure cooker to make curries, because I have watched numerous videos and read numerous blog posts and articles, but have had little direct experience.

A recipe for eggplant and tomato curry caught my eye, and, since I had two big beautiful globe eggplants and a ripe red tomato, I figured I would go for it. It turns out to be very easy.



So, I prepped:

• two hefty globe eggplants, peeled and cubed
• one fist-sized tomato, sliced
• a couple inches of ginger, grated
• four to six cloves of garlic, mashed
• half an onion, diced
• two ounces of tomato paste, or basically whatever's left over from the six-ounce can you opened for something else

I also got some curry spices: cumin seeds, mustard seeds, turmeric, red chilies, garam masala, salt and black pepper to taste.



Then, the rest of the recipe is pretty standard currying procedure for me:



With a couple tablespoons of neutral oil, fry the whole spices, then the onion, then the garlic and ginger, then the powdered spices.

Then you dump in whatever you're currying and cook it all together. I save the tomato paste to stir in after the vegetables cook. Is this necessary? I'm not sure, that's just how I do it.

The eggplant had to go in two batches, to soften enough in the oil to even close the lid on the pressure cooker. When everything was in the pot, I added about a half-cup of water, closed the lid, brought it up to pressure, and gave it about eight minutes.



The eggplants cooked up all soft and delicious, but it looks like I added just a little too much water out of pressure-cooker-explosion paranoia. Next time, a quarter cup. I stirred in the tomato paste and let it simmer with the lid off for a couple of minutes.



I plated this with some saffron basmati and a fistful of freshly chopped cilantro and mint.

Kidney Bean and Potato Curry

Sometimes it seems like every dang kind of vegetarian food is just another delicious brown goop. Yummy and nutritious, but hardly photogenic.

I had this can of kidney beans, in the cabinet, for, like, a while, and every time I would open up the cabinet to get some stuff out the beans would be all like Matt, why did you buy us if you were just going to put us in the dark.

These conversations rarely happen at meal-planning time, but I wanted some curry potatoes, and I wanted some beans to go on them, and I thought, yes, kidney beans. High five. It is your time to shine.



I diced up a small onion, crushed 5-6 cloves of garlic, grated a couple inches of ginger, and measured out a heaping tablespoon of garam masala, a scant-ish two teaspoons of turmeric, a hefty spoonful of cumin seeds, a poetic spoonful of mustard seeds, and lots of black pepper. I diced four yukon golds and opened and drained the kidney beans.



Get a couple of tablespoons of canola oil in a medium-hot pan, and it's curry time.



In go the whole spices for six seconds. In go the powdered spices for ten seconds. In goes the garlic and ginger and the onion and a tyrrany of salt.

When the onions are soft, in go the potatoes and then start a little rice. You have to sort of chaperone the potatoes so they don't stick, but you can leave this about 70% unguarded on a low-ish flame while you conduct other business.

When the potatoes are soft, stir in a cup (maybe a cup and a half) of liquid and add your beans. Bring it up to a bubble, and then turn it down. You're done!

Serve with rice and hot sauce.