ninasnosh

I wasn’t really planning to blog this dish but thought why not!  I’m in the process of having a good go at using up the contents of my pantry and fridge, and thought it would be a good opportunity to show you how easy it is to vary a dish. A slight change in ingredients or method of cooking can easily change a dish and add variation to your culinary repertoire.

So after my pizza making on Sunday I was left with 1/3 jar of passata and needed to find a use for it. Here is a variation of my earlier recipe of ‘Tuver, Aubergine and Methi’. Substituting the fresh tomato with the passata creates a dish where the vegetables are cooked in a sauce.

Ingredients

Serves 4 people if served with another dish

For the vagar:

• 1 1/2 – 2 tbsp sunflower/canola oil
• 1/2 tsp of mustard seeds
• 1/4 tsp hing

• 1 medium size aubergine (eggplant) chopped into 3cm sized pieces
• 1 frozen bag of tuver (about 300g) – you could substitute with frozen peas
• 1/3 jar of passata – topped up to a half a jar with with water
• 2 blocks of frozen fenugreek leaves – taken out the freezer 30mins before cooking
• 1 potato peeled and cut into cubes of 2cm
• 1 heaped tsp of fresh masala
• 3 tsp of ground coriander and cumin
• 1/4 tsp of turmeric
• 1-2 tsp of salt

Method

1. Prepare the aubergine and potato – soak the aubergine and potato in water once chopped or it will go black (strain when ready to use)
2. If you haven’t had a chance to take the fenugreek out the freezer defrost it in the microwave
3. In a largish non-stick saucepan heat the oil for the vagar
4. Once the oil is hot add the hing and mustard seeds
5. Remove the saucepan from the heat once the mustard seeds have popped
6. Now add the aubergine, tuver, potato and fenugreek leaves – mix through
7. Return the saucepan to the heat, add all the spices and mix through
8. Cover with a lid and cook on a medium heat for a couple of minutes
9. Now add the passata and water, mix through, cover with the lid and cook on a low-medium heat for around 25 – 30 minutes
10. During the cooking time gently stir to prevent sticking – add water if the dish starts to get too dry
11. Cooking times will vary so check the aubergine, tuver, and potato to make sure it is cooked – adjust cooking time accordingly

Serve this dish along side a dahl with roti, naan or rice.

This entry was posted on May 2, 2012 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Recipes, Vegetarian with tags asafoetida, curry, easy, food, fresh tomato, ground cumin, hungry, indian, masala, peas, potato, recipes, simple, spices, spicy, vegetarian, yummy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.