Potato Eggplant Curry

This recipe came to me through the “How to Cook Great” site on YouTube. Click here for an instructive video that produces almost exactly what I will describe in this post. The following recipe will make 4-5 servings of a delicious vegan curry.

For some of the ingredients, you will need to shop at an Indian grocery—especially if you want the dish to taste authentic. These ingredients are marked in the text by IND in square brackets: [IND].

I typically use a largish nonstick pot that has a cover for the final stage of cooking.

On to the recipe:

  1. Put several tablespoons of sunflower seed oil in the pot and turn to heat to moderate high.
  2. When the oil is hot, add a several tablespoons of black mustard seeds [IND] and cumin seed (also known as jeera) [IND] and watch the seeds pop. Stir for up to a minute.
  3. Take two largish russet potatoes, peel them, and cut into pieces slightly smaller than 1 cubic inch. Stir for several minutes.
  4. Add a large dollop of garlic ginger paste [IND] and stir in.
  5. Add salt to taste,
  6. Slice one medium size red onion and stir into the mix. Stir for a couple of minutes.
  7. Add the following three spices, approximately one heaping tablespoon of each: (a) haldi turmeric [IND], (b) cumin, and (c) (if desired) a hot chile powder. For the chile powder, you can substitute Hungarian paprika if you can’t handle the heat. Stir.
  8. Dice into pieces a medium to large eggplant and add to the mix. Continue stirring.
  9. If you like spicy food, mice one jalapeño or two serrano chile peppers.
  10. Cut up four or five small tomatoes and add to the pot. Stir.
  11. Turn down the heat to medium low, cover the pot, and cook for ten to twenty minutes.
  12. Chop a handful of cilantro and add before serving.

Deadly Nightshade

So Many Foods I Love Are Related to Deadly Nightshade

On several occasions, I have been warned by good friends to beware of foods that are related to deadly nightshade (a.k.a. belladonna). Unfortunately, these include some of my favorites, including:

  • Potatoes
  • Tomatoes
  • Chile peppers
  • Bell peppers
  • Eggplant
  • Paprika

It is not unusual to find foods that have unsavory relatives. Perhaps most common of these is common table salt, which is made up of two poisonous elements, sodium and chlorine. Despite all the bad press that salt has received from many in the medical profession, it is indisputable that the human body cannot exist without it, especially in hot climates.

Despite what some of my more health-food conscious friends may say, I have no intention in cutting back on members of the family Solanaceae. In fact, I believe that the foods in the above list are positively good for me. If anything, I will eat more of them in future. For instance, I cannot imagine living my life without chile peppers.