Brinjal with spicy potato

Its time to comfort myself with food.

The veggies flavour is also tasting much better now as we are having warm mild weather during the day.

Nights can be around 15 degree Celsius this week.

I have not really cook that much these days.

Many of the veggies has been left over ripe.

Not picking them as often as I should.

Brought in the last batch of garlic in the kitchen that were left curing in the shed.

'Black Beauty' brinjals (eggplants) had holes in it from admirers.

Some of the brinjals has interesting looking resident in it taking shelter from the previous heat I think.

We have "Red Romaine" lettuce volunteer around the garden.

I left some go to seed previous spring.

Thank you to Mr. H for the lettuce seeds.

I have kept a recipe from Troth Wallis ~ The Globe Vegetarian Kitchen recipe book since last year to try in my recipe file. The recipe is said to come from the Moluccas in Indonesia which is formerly known as the Spice Island. It was the source of many spices, such as cloves and nutmeg that was highly prized in Europe during the trading era. The taste of this 'brinjal with spicy potato' dish actually remind me of Indian dish rather than South East Asian dish. But this is not surprising because the old empire in Malaysia and Indonesia were first highly influence by India empire and culture before it was colonised. I think adding a handful of curry leaves will be more interesting for this dish after I tried this recipe.

Brinjal/ Eggplants with Spicy Potatoes (serves 2-4)

Ingredient:

1 brinjal (diced)

2 potatoes (diced and parboiled)

1 onion (sliced)

1/2 tsp chili powder (I used chilli/sambal oelek)

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 inch piece fresh ginger root, chopped

lemon/lime juice (from 1 fruit)

oil

salt

a handful washed curry leaves (optional)

(1) Heat the oil in a pan and cook the onion until it is clear and soft.

(2) After that put in the chili, mustard seeds, turmeric, ginger, curry leaves and salt. Cook on a gentle heat, stirring to mix well. Then turn up the heat, add the brinjal and parboiled potatoes and brown them, turning to prevent them catching.

(3) Add a little water to cover the base of the pan, put the lid on and cook gently for 10 minutes or so until the vegetables are tender and the liquid is absorbed. Add lemon/lime juice mix well.

Join in Robin Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard and Wendy Garden to Table Challenge.