Nutty Eggplant and Potato Curry

The Spice of Vegetarian Cooking
Martha Rose Shulman
Healing Arts Press (1986)
ISBN 0892813997

Martha Rose Shulman is one of my favorite vegetarian cookbook authors. A friend introduced me with the gift of The Vegetarian Feast. Then I got Fast Vegetarian Feasts, which is certainly on the shortlist for my desert island cookbook list. Mediterranean Light, along with the beautiful little books Main-Dish Salads and Main-Dish Soups, are also on that list. The other two Main-Dish books, Grains and Tarts and Gratins are well thumbed but not as well used as the other two. I got this book expecting to like it a lot—vegetarian and spicy, "ethnic recipes from India, China, Mexico, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe"—these are things that are usually very popular round our house. But I've never found a recipe here that really appealed.

Having a bit of an Indian itch, I turned to this book for a curry dish. But I can't say we were very pleased with it. There's a similar sort of recipe, Neela's Eggplant and Potato, in Madhur Jaffrey's old World of the Easy Vegetarian Cooking that is lightyear's better.

Nutty Eggplant and Potato Curry begins by roasting an eggplant and steaming some diced potatoes while the eggplant roasts. Then you sauté some onion, garlic, and ginger in butter. After a few minutes, stir in some curry powder. (Of course, no matter how good your curry powder is, this is a clue that the recipe is going to be short on real flavor.) Continue sautéing for a good long time, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes total.

Now stir in the potato, the eggplant (removed from skin and chopped), some raisins, and some peanuts (Shulman also suggests almonds or sunflower seeds, but I think cashews should have be better still) and cook another 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, take off the heat , and stir in a cup of buttermilk or plain yogurt.

I'll give this book at least one more try, but I have a suspicion it might be one that ends up on the recycle stack when my cookbook shelf space becomes critical.

This is another post linked to this week's Cookbook Sundays. I'm having fun with my using-unused-cookbooks challenge!

This week in the kitchen

Monday/27-Feb-12: Nothing much happened in the kitchen today. Went to a movie tonight and ate Chinese/Vietnamese afterewards.

Tuesday/28-Feb-12: Dinner was Nutty Eggplant and Potato Curry (VegSpice, p83) over plain rice, plus some Potato and Pea Samosas (web, and many other places) and Raita (MJ1, p162). The curry was OK, but pretty boring as these things go. The samosas, wrapped in filo and baked, were very good. I made ten, but should have filled them a little less full and made a dozen.

Yogurt on overnight.

Wednesday/29-Feb-12: Made a dose of tagliatelle tonight to go with a half recipe of Tagliatelle with Chicken Livers (PastaCarluccio, p16). Even I, a non-chicken-liver-lover, liked it. Served with a salad. (Accidentally got a 200g sack of mixed lettuces, so saved some for tomorrow night.) Followed by frozen raspberries (thawed) over toasted frozen waffles topped with a bit of cream.

Thursday/1-Mar-12: Discovered today that the Type 65 flour that I bought at the mills on Sunday is high-gluten flour, so should be good for breads. The Type 45 flour that I buy ordinarily is equivalent to cake flour, although it's been making some pretty good bread. Wonder if we'll notice the difference when I make bread with the Type 65?

After some hits from this book, Chicken Patties with Rosemary and Pancetta (Diaries, p39) was not so successful. Tasted OK, but the ground chicken from breasts was dry in spite of being fatted up with lardons/pancetta and baked in broth. For serving, I thickened the broth a bit with potato starch. Served with smashed potatoes. Finished with a bit of lettuce and the rest of last week's Carrot Salad with Cumin, Cinnamon, and Sweet Paprika.

Friday/2-Mar-12: Dinner was a half recipe of Thai Shrimp Curry (KnowHow, p389; cookbooker), from the Thai Curry chapter, served over rice. Accompanied by a half recipe of Cucumber Salad (Delightful, p51; cookbooker), which is one of my standard side dishes for a southeast Asian-ish meal. For dessert, I defrosted some mango slices.

Saturday/3-Mar-12: Belated shopping again today. We still didn't try the scanner gadget; next time perhaps. Saw first fêves of the year, from Egypt, but didn't get any. Did buy some beautiful haricots verts from Morocco, a bit closer. Lots of nice-looking summer veg from Peru and such.

Planted a hedge of bird-friendly shrubs today, as well as three blueberry plants in big pots. Both of us with sore backs now. Sigh.

Dinner was a halfish recipe of Broccoli and Cashew Pilaf (VegSpice, p113) plus the left-over samosas. Forgot to make more raita, which was a shame, since there's yogurt to use up and I bought some fresh mint today (the mint pot isn't showing signs of life yet). I used half the rice and broccoli for the pilaf, but the full amount of spices and it wasn't bad, much better than the nutty eggplant thing earlier in the week. Think I might put the adapted version into Mastercook. The samosas reheated very well.

Yogurt on overnight with a new starter.

Sunday/4-Mar-12: Big lunch at the Fruits de Mer in Lèsignac-Durance today. Nothing happening around in our kitchen.

Hmm...never made any bread this week. What happened?

Progress on goals
This week: #1 COOKBOOKS: yes, #2 BREAD: no, #3 SOUP: no, #4 MIDDAY: yes, #5 VEG/FISH: 3
This month: #6 PASTA: February, yes; March, no