Home-style Roasted Eggplant, Baingan Bharta

If I had to name one vegetable I couldn’t handle eating as a child – it’s the versatile eggplant or aubergine, frequently used in Indian cooking and better known as ‘Baingan’ or brinjal. (Baingan Bharta just translates to brinjal hash.)

Perhaps it was the texture of the vegetable that bothered me then…and well into my adult years and culinary school, when disliking any vegetable was not really an option anymore.

As you’ll see from today’s recipe, I’m over it and happy to bring you an Indian favorite – my homemade version of the well-loved, spiced hash-style preparation “Baingan Bharta”. I like adding fresh peas and sweet corn for a crunchy textural balance to the hash.

The authentic north Indian dish is fairly simple, and the only complexity of the recipe is the process of fire roasting eggplant on an open flame (a tandoor oven being the most preferred open flame). If you have a grill running, feel free to roast your eggplant on it.

Alternately, bake the eggplant in your regular oven as per the instructions in this recipe. It is also possible to roast the eggplants on a wire rack placed on an indoor stovetop flame – a process that can get messy, and is best used as a last resort.