I haven’t attempted this recipe for a very long time. Adapted from this.

Ingredients

Fresh

  • 2 aubergines of a decent size
  • 1.5 onion
  • 3 cloves garlic

Pantry

  • 3 tins tomatoes
  • 0.75 tsp turmeric
  • 250g yellow split peas or chickpeas (the former not being easy to find in Brazil)
  • 4 dried limes
  • 5 tbsp oil TODO what
  • 2 ice cube-sized amounts of tomato puree

Instructions

(Best when made the day before.)

Only for split peas

Rinse and soak the peas overnight, rapidly boil them for 10 minutes before adding to casserole. (When I tried it they were still a bit hard so may need even more cooking, or maybe that’s just their nature. Internet says that they may be old peas, or it could be because acid was added. I think I can improve this.)

Only for chickpeas

Cook same as chickpea curry.

Main

Heat oven to 200C (non-fan, not sure of conversion).

Aubergines

  1. Peel and slice aubergines (try to get it even and not too thin, or they burn and turn all papery)
  2. Oil on both sides
  3. Put on baking trays with tinfoil
  4. Cook for 20 mins

Stew

  1. Cook onion and garlic until golden (I used 2tbsp oil)
  2. Add:
    • 0.5 cup water
    • tomatoes
    • tomato puree
    • turmeric
    • limes (puncture them, apparently)
    • pulses
  3. Cook on low heat (actually, on Brazil cooker I did it at around 5/6) for 45 mins, uncovered
    • don’t try too much to squash the limes during cooking, because they might end up breaking and leaving all these black bits in the stew

Assembly

  1. Layer sauce and aubergines in baking tray (e.g. fills one of our German square glass things)
  2. Cover and bake for 45 mins

Notes from previous attempts

  • 25/11/17: Not enough sauce for layering, aubergines always come out sloppy and tasteless. Other recipes I’ve seen just cook everything in the pan. Split peas still too much bite for my taste.
  • 26/11/17: Got new peas. Cooked them for about 45 minutes. Thing is; they didn’t stay discrete and become soft; they instead became a crunchy mush. Salted the aubergines (put em on kitchen towel, cover in salt, leave for half an hour, wipe the water off, rinse, dry and squeeze) which made them come out less sloppy. Made 3/2 the amount of sauce. Fried the onions well. Way better, overall.
  • 7/5/18: Try cooking the aubergines in a different manner next time to make them less tough - perhaps Joe’s parboiling method, or steaming them like in that Ottolenghi recipe. Fry some tomato purée towards the end of the onions. Chop the onions fairly large so they don’t burn when frying (want to get them very brown). Make it in advance and let it cool, tastes better.
  • 2/3/20: Soaked the aubergine slices in brine for 40 mins, then rinsed and patted the water out with a paper towel. Came out very silky. Made double the quantity because why not.
  • 27/9/24:
    • In order to use less oil and do less faffery, I tried quartering the aubergines lengthways instead. Let’s see how it comes out.
    • Updated recipe to reflect the 3/2
    • Added aforementioned tomato puree into recipe (who knows if it matters)
    • Brine was 500g aubergine / 1.75l water / 2 tbsp salt. Noticed that the aubergines kept floating, so put a water-filled thing on top to keep them down. I wondered if brining made the aubergines salty; nope.
    • Used 1 tbsp oil for the aubergines (with brush)
    • Used 1 tsp salt in the stew; let’s see how it comes out Notes after eating:
    • TODO for next time: Well, I don’t know how the aubergine is because the corner I had had zero. Try to find a way to make sure that every part of every layer has some aubergine (probably could increase the quantity and make sure each layer is full, insetad of putting sauce between the bits of aubergine
    • TODO for next time: Could probably take a bit more salt
    • It’s not the world’s tastiest thing, compared to that oily saucy stuff you get in tins
  • 13/10/24:
    • Cooked the onions on 6 for a long time, until they got somewhat golden and brown, and very reduced
    • Tried with 1.5tsp of salt, instead
    • Used aubergines that were way larger than last time, but still cut them into 4, and then, like an idiot, didn’t check they were soft afterwards.
    • She said she also doesn’t particularly like the appearance of huge long bits of aubergine. Slice or cube or something again next time (and accept the increased amount of oil
    • Use 2 tbsp oil for onions and garlic
    • I’m not convinced the layering needs to be preserved very much, I ended up mixing it up to get rid of the condensation on top
    • Before soaking I also tried to take some of the seeds out of the aubergines by kind of scraping with a spoon. I got a fair few out but there were loads left. Also, don’t think I could do this if I were to instead cube (I guess unless I halved it first, did this, then cubed.)
    • She prefers it with less aubergine (i.e. last time’s 500g) than more (i.e. this time’s 750g) — buy aubergine by weight in the future
    • So, in the end, to fix the tough aubergine, we cut it up and shoved it back in the oven for 2 hours; this ended up making it really nice and reduced, with some charred bits that we mixed back in, and is something to consider doing in the future