The Taste Divine: Mashed Eggplant

Did a lot of cooking today! Made mashed potatoes, bread, and my first crack at a cookbook from Jo, "The Taste Divine." I've long contemplated making things from this book, but the author insists on calling for bizarre ingredients that I'm sure cannot be found in the US, specialty food stores or no. Anyhow, the neighborhood Superfresh certainly does not have asafoetida or coriander leaves (update: this is cilantro. #genius). It doesn't even have turmeric powder or cardamom. So, without further ado, here is my version of "Vairagya/Mashed Eggplant":
Coat 1 large eggplant lightly with oil & cook 45 min at 400 deg. or until skin is loose (as per mom's earlier post). Skin and chop eggplant into small pieces.
Heat 1T olive oil in a saute pan.
Saute one chopt onion.
Add 1 chopt jalapeno and 2 chopt tomato (I used an heirloom CSA tomato--made a big difference!) Saute until well-cooked.
Add eggplant and cook until everything is soft and well-blended. Periodically mash with a spoon.
Add .5t salt, .5t coriander powder, .5t cumin about 3 min before you remove from stove.
Serve with bread or rice.

The eggplant is pictured above with veggies vindaloo, rice, and raita.  Sorry the image of the dish in question is so small... I usually get so excited about sampling a new dish that I forget to photograph it and then have to scramble for blog pics later on!


Word to the wise: if you only have 1 eggplant and 1 tomato, it is not a good idea to use a whole jalapeno. In fact, it is a worse idea to use a monster jalapeno that's the size of about 2 jalapenos put together. I had to eat mine with an absurd amount of bread to tone down the heat. Still, it was delicious.