Name: Baked baby aubergines
Yield: Serves 4-6 as a side dish
Cuisine: India
Ingredients: 10 cloves; 6-8 green cardamom pods; 4-6 tbsp ghee or vegetable oil; 6-8 onions, thinly sliced; 12 baby aubergines (about 450 g); 5 cm piece of root ginger, grated; 1/4 tsp turmeric; 11/2 tsp black peppercorns; 3 tsp chilli powder; salt; 60 g caster sugar; juice of 2-3 limes; 2 black cardamom pods; 2 X 5 cm cinnamon sticks; 1 tsp ground allspice; 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds; generous handful of finely chopped mint leaves

Preparation info

Serves
4-6
as a side dish

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Reza's Indian Spice

By Reza Mahammad

Published 2012

About

My mother made the most amazing baked aubergines and I have tried to recreate this dish of my childhood. The sweetness of the lime solution works beautifully, but you must make sure that the sugar completely dissolves in the lime. The stuffing can be made a day or two before, and the dish assembled and baked on the day. All the juices are absorbed by the aubergines and it will play havoc with your tastebuds... in a lovely way, of course.