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Instant Pot Masala Eggplant Curry. Pressure cooked Indian Baghare baingan. Stuffed Baby Eggplant / Brinjal Curry. Add chickpeas to make a meal. Vegan Glutenfree Soyfree Recipe . Easily made nut-free
I make variations of stuffed baby eggplant using the traditional method of pan frying the eggplant, then stuffing it, and then cooking in the sauce. The frying or pan frying helps hold color and shape of the eggplant. But its a long process. And really its so delicious either way whether you do the frying method or this shorter pressure cooked version. Everything looks brown in the end, so use garnishes liberally and serve with colorful foods like dals, side salad etc.
Make this pressure cooked version and dress it liberally with coconut and cilantro so no one will know how you made it and serve over rice or as a side with dals and flatbread. The stuffing a a mix of roasted whole spices, nuts, chickpea flour or besan, and some coconut. Omit the nuts and use more of chickpea flour and coconut for nut-free version. The toasty mixture is ground up and blended with some ginger, garlic and lime juice to make a coarse paste. The eggplants are sliced across and filled with the paste. Place them in the Instant pot or pressure cooker, add water and done! Cook for 3 to 5 mins, natural release whenever ready to serve. You can also make them in a saucepan on stove top. See both options below.
More Indian Veggie Dishes from the blog.
- Mushroom Matar Masala GF
- Bombay Potato and Peas GF
- Aloo Baingan – Potato Eggplant Curry GF
- Veggies in Coconut Sesame Kolhapuri sauce. GF
- More Instant Pot Recipes here
Serve these eggplants with Dals like a simple everyday Lentil Chard Hariyali Dal, restaurant style Punjabi Dal Fry. Mom’s favorite Sabut Masoor – or Brown Lentil Soup, or a saucy dish like Tofu in Spinach Curry – Saag Tofu
Toast the whole spices
Toast besan, nuts and coconut.
Blend with ginger garlic lime juice.
Stuff the eggplants
Place in instant pot or pressure cooker. Add water and cook for 3 mins.
Natural release and serve garnished with coconut and cilantro. Specimen number 1 on how difficult it is to photograph brown sauces and pressure cooked veggies.
Its true that Indian food is a bit intensive. It is like art with layers of subtle flavors that work with each other and some that dont overlap at all. This applies to many other cuisines. You can play around with the recipes with whatever you have for most cases. It gets easier and faster when you cook more recipes from a cuisine. There is a shorter method in the notes.
Instant Pot Masala Eggplant
Ingredients
Stuffing Masala:
- 1 tbsp coriander seeds
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
- 2 to 3 tbsp chickpea flour or besan
- 2 tbsp chopped nuts, such as peanuts or cashews
- 2 tbsp coconut shreds
- 1 to 1.5 inch ginger, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 hot green chile, chopped
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- a pinch of cinnamon
- 1/3 to 1/2 tsp cayenne
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp raw sugar, jaggery or sweetener
- 1/2 to 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp lime or lemon juice
- water as needed
Curry:
- 4 to 6 baby eggplants
- 1 cup water
- cilantro, coconut and garam masala for garnish
Instructions
Instant Pot:
- Heat a small skillet over medium heat or heat the instant pot over saute. Add coriander, cumin and mustard seeds and cook for 2 mins or until the coriander seeds change color.
- Add chickpea flour and mix well. Cook for a min. Add the nuts and coconut and mix well. Roast for 1-2 mins until fragrant. Cool the mixture for a minute then transfer to a small blender or small food processor.
- Process/blend to coarsely grind.
- Add ginger, garlic, chile, lime/lemon and the rest of the ground spices and pulse to make a coarse mixture. Add a tsp or so water until the mixture easily sticks. The mixture is a small amount so you will need a small blender. Alternatively, transfer the dry spice nut mixture from earlier step to a bowl. Add finely chopped ginger, garlic, chile, rest of the ground spices, and mix in. Add lemon and water and mix and make a coarse pasty mixture.
- Make cross cuts on the eggplant, not all the way through so the whole eggplant stays put. Fill the stuffing into the cross cut. See pics above.
- Place the eggplants in an instant pot or pressure cooker. Add 1 cup or more water and 1/4 tsp salt. At this point you can also add in a cup of cooked chickpeas or other beans. Pressure cook for 3 to 5 mins depending on the size of the eggplants. Let the pressure release naturally. Garnish with coconut, cilantro and garam masala and serve with flatbread/roti or rice.
Saucepan:
- At the last step, place the stuffed eggplants in a skillet or shallow saucepan with a lid. Add 1.5 cups water and 1/4 tsp salt. Cover and ook over medium heat for 18 to 22 mins or until tender to preference.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi, could I sub another flour for besan flour? I have all purpose flour only.
Yea that will work
For those with eggplant questions, here’s what I did. I bought 4 Italian baby eggplant that were definitely smaller than traditional globe eggplant but were long and kind of thin. I cut the very tops off and then cut another 3rd off the top, leaving enough eggplant remaining to cut and stuff. This worked beautifully. I reserved the remaining cut pieces for another time. Though the eggplant technique worked very well, I wasn’t enamored with the dish as a whole. Hers had a reddish hue in the picture that mine never achieved. I do not have an insta pot but rather made in a shallow skillet with a lid, as step 6 suggests. I’m not sure if this is why the dish didn’t come out as I would have liked. I love many of her other recipes tho.
Some regional Indian dishes can be an acquired flavor/texture. Adjust it a bit to the profile you like more, like more coconut or some garam masala, or paprika for color. Pressure cooking can add a bit more color as it also roasts a bit under pressure. Also, photos get edited to look a bit more vibrant with extra light and shadows. Some sauces can get a too grey-brown that look not as appealing in photos (some colors and textures that look fine in real life dont translate as well to photos). Maybe chop up the eggplants for stove top version so they cook and roast well.
Also sometimes eggplants(any size) can be bitter, so they add a bitter profile to the overall dish. It happens once in a while that there is a significant flavor difference in the same dish with all same ingredients which was harmonious at other times but not as much with a particular eggplant batch as the bitter is not as pleasing. Same with green bell peppers. once in while, they are inedibly bitter. I am glad you generally love my other recipes! 🙂
Do you use dry coconut or fresh shredded (I’ve seen that sold in the frozen section of some Asian grocery stores)?
either will work
I tried this last week, my hubby totally loved this recipe, he could not resist singing its glories for the next few days!
Thank you???? You are awesome ????????