Stir Fried Fenugreek Leaves with Fried Aubergine/ Brinjal (Methi Shaak Baygoon Bhaja)

As I have mentioned in my previous post I was away from blogosphere due to my health and so missed all the activity that was happening in the world of food blogs. Few days back I managed to squeeze out some time to take a trip around the world of food blogs – particularly the ones I follow – and I came across this event  ‘Spotlight– Winter Vegetables’ at Indrani’s blog Recipe Junction; I was definitely interested and wanted to participate, but what was it that got me so excited? Well simple, it was this remark by Indrani, ‘There are lots of advantages eating seasonal fruits, fruits and vegetables will not only be cheaper but also at their flavor and nutritional peaks’, that is something my mum always said, she never liked to cook unseasonal vegetables.
Besides isn’t this blog all about my (late) mum’s cooking? Mum cooked leafy vegetables like spinach and fenugreek leaves (Methi) only during winter and I am following mum.

Last winter I had posted Stir Fried Fenugreek Leaves with Potatoes which was cooked by Ma and I had mentioned how the potatoes could be replaced with aubergine. This winter – my first winter without Ma- I decided to cook the leaves with aubergine and I am sure you will agree that there is no point in cooking something without posting it on my blog. 

So here is a typical Bengali vegetarian recipe comprising fenugreek leaves and aubergine called methi baygoon bhaaja (stir fried fenugreek leaves with aubergine). I had once cooked it probably more than a decade ago in my mum’s presence but this is the first time I cooked it in her absence. The question is did I do everything right? I guess so for there was no difference in the taste; there however was a difference and that was in the way I diced the aubergine, well the cubes of the aubergine were not equal sized, the way mum chopped vegetables it was almost like a work of art.

Without further ado I will go on to the recipe. A word of caution, you will find I have only listed the ingredients without specifying the measurements; you will have to make your own judgment besides it is also a matter of personal taste but I have a suggestion- it would be better to have more aubergine and less of the fenugreek leaves for the dish might taste too bitter but all the same the choice is yours, as I said it is a matter of personal taste.

Ingredients:

• Fenugreek Leaves
• Aubergine (Not the small variety but the ones we normally use for bharta)
• Turmeric powder
• Kashmiri chilli powder or green chillies
• Salt to taste

Method:

• Pluck the leaves from the stems and wash them well. 
• Boil the leaves; take care not to over boil the leaves and do not use too much water. Incidentally after cooking I checked my blog and noticed that Ma had chopped the leaves before boiling them.  
• Dice the aubergine. 
• Heat some mustard oil in a wok or kadhai. Bengalis prefer to use mustard oil but if you are not comfortable with it then you may use any other oil but I feel the mustard oil imparts a lovely flavour to the dish. 
•  Shallow fry the diced aubergine. 
• Remove the fried aubergine from the oil and keep it aside. 
• In the same oil shallow fry the boiled fenugreek leaves, take care to squeeze out all the water from the leaves before frying the leaves. Do not discard this water.
• Now add the fried pieces of aubergine to the leaves, stir a bit. 
• Add a bit of turmeric powder and the red chilli powder; you may substitute the red chilli powder with green chillies. I prefer to use Kashmiri chilli powder for it is milder than the regular chillies. Ma however used only green chillies for this dish. 
• Add salt to taste and stir well. 
• Add the water which you have squeezed out from the boiled fenugreek leaves. Cover and leave it for a while till the water has evaporated. 

Bengalis have it as a first course and it is normally eaten with steamed rice but you can also have it with phulka rotis.

Sending this to Indrani's event Spotlight: Winter Vegetables