Do you have a favourite takeaway? Or takeout?
We did until Lockdown shut it down. It was a small, curry house, in a nondescript corner building about five minutes walk from where we live. You’d easily walk past it if you didn’t know about the food that was cooked there.
Before lockdown, when the kids were small, Sunday night was our takeout night. It was a reward for getting through the week with two boisterous kids, kids that bounced off walls, kids that couldn’t sit down, kids who demanded our attention all the time, seemingly every minute, every hour, every day, until they fell into bed and finally fell asleep. And when we hit that point on a Sunday night, we’d call in our takeout.
It didn’t matter what my order was, my side was always an aubergine curry. And Curry Master did a fine baingan masala, chunky pieces of aubergine cooked down into an onion and tomato gravy laden with spice.
Curry Master was a casualty of Lockdown. It had been run by a group of older Muslim men. Perhaps they decided to call time on the long nights cooking our ritualistic Indian takeout and spend more time with their families.
A younger crew moved in and tried to revive the takeout. That didn't last long. Their baingan masala paled in comparison, the only time I ordered the dish, I bit into bitter undercooked aubergine. We never went back.
There's a new operation in there now, they have a restaurant a few miles from us, this is their takeout. I’ve eaten from there once, as my Dad would say: Not bad. I’m going to give them time to grow and develop. At least they didn’t serve me undercooked aubergine.
An aubergine curry that I have been enraptured by, is made and served at the MUVs ALLDAY supper clubs. The recipe is a closely guarded secret known only to Krish and Joey, the co-founders, and Krish’s mum, the founder of that aubergine curry.
I have a baby aubergine curry sitting on my food blog. It was hanging there, not doing much, desperately in need of some love and attention. I created the recipe during my early days of food blogging. It was a version of my mother’s recipe, I recall the specialness of baby aubergines, the simple thrill of having a whole aubergine on my plate.
Taking a look at the recipe, and its ingredients, I knew it needed to be updated, it needed more punch and vibrancy. My new version of this recipe now includes coconut milk and tamarind. There is a certain type of food magic that happens when tamarind is combined with coconut milk. It has a creamy tartness, an appealing I-can’t-stop-eating-this quality.
This updated dish carries much more depth of flavour, yet it remains simple to make resulting in baby aubergines sitting proudly in a pool of thick, golden turmeric-laced gravy ready to be spooned onto your waiting plate.
A recipe for baby aubergine curry
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Yields: 4 portions
Ingredients
500g baby aubergine
100g cherry tomatoes
3 tbs vegetable oil
1 red onion sliced
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2cm ginger, finely chopped
1 sprig of curry leaves
2 tsp curry powder*
¼ tsp chili powder
¼ tsp turmeric
A pinch of fenugreek seeds
50mls tamarind water**
400ml coconut milk
Salt for seasoning
Method
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius (fan), 200 degrees celsius (normal).
Slice the aubergines lengthways to the stalk, leaving the aubergine intact, and place on a baking tray with the cherry tomatoes, drizzle with a tablespoon of vegetable oil and season with salt. Place the tray in the oven and roast for 20 minutes.
Just before the aubergines are done, heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan, tip in the sliced onions then the garlic, ginger and curry leaves. Spoon in the dried spices, heating through for a minute.
Take the aubergines and tomatoes out of the oven, stir into the spices with a pinch of salt and cook for two minutes.
Pour in the coconut milk and tamarind water, simmer for 15 minutes, once the sauce has thickened, take off the heat and serve.
* Curry powder recipe
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
Method
Place all the dry ingredients into a small, solid bottom frying pan
On a gentle heat start to warm the spices. Let the spices heat up until you get a gorgeous smell wafting through your kitchen. Continue to heat until the spices turn a golden brown
Take off the heat and pour into the spices into a spice grinder and blitz to a powder. (You can use a pestle and mortar and with a bit of elbow grease, grind the spices into a powder.)
Store in a glass jar and use when needed.
** How to make tamarind water
Break a nugget of tamarind from a block of dried tamarind and pop it into a bowl of boiling water. Leave it to soak for five minutes. I use the back of the spoon to squeeze the flesh before straining the tamarind flavoured water into a small jug or bowl.
I love aubergines. I love curries. We are having a new kitchen installed this week. Perhaps this'll be one of my first dishes created in the new kitchen.
I can’t believe this recipe came up today, it is nearly ingredient by ingredient the same as the Sri Lankan Fish Curry I have made for dinner tonight. I’m glad you mentioned the flavours from the combination of coconut milk and tamarind, although my recipe has a tablespoon of tamarind purée. Looking forward to dining this evening. Our local Indian restaurant is our favourite takeaway, but mostly I cook.