Spicy Sweet and Sour Eggplant | Bangladeshi Tok Begun

I love making this eggplant recipe for dinner parties!

It really is the perfect side dish. Packed with flavor, it pairs well with just about anything. From rice, pulao, and khichuris, to biryanis.

Serve it with a beautiful curry or two and your dinner menu is complete. I love it with my chicken korma, beef curry, yellow chicken curry, shrimp malai curry, or egg curry

The trick to this dish is balancing the sweet and sour flavors.

The sourness of the dish comes from the addition of tamarind paste. You can find this in jars or packets at your local South Asian grocers. You can also use tamarind concentrate, but make sure to use less than 1/2 the amount required as the concentrate is much thicker, almost syrup like, and quite strong.

We’ll be using sugar to balance out the sourness. Add just enough to where your sauce is both pleasantly sweet and sour without one overwhelming the other! You can dilute your tamarind paste in 1/4 cup of water first, then taste and adjust the sugar there to make this step easier.

You also want to fry your eggplants on high heat.

This will keep it from soaking in too much oil. Usually you would cook the eggplants on medium heat so they can cook through, but since we will be cooking the eggplant in the curry later, you only need to cook it halfway through during the frying stage, which works well with the high heat. It will allow for maximum browning without making the eggplant mushy. Fry them in two batches if needed.

If you don’t have panch phoron (bengali five spice):

Just mix equal amounts of whole cumin, fenugreek, brown mustard seeds, fennel and nigella seeds. I like to use very minimal fenugreek in most recipes as they are quite chunky and bitter. So I add less of that or pick them out of ready made mixes. Adjust to your liking.

You can watch the whole process in the video below:

INGREDIENTS  

• 1 large eggplant
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Vegetable oil for frying

For the curry

• 3 tbsp vegetable/mustard oil
• 1/2 large onion (about 1 cup sliced)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3-5 dried red chilis
• 1/2 tsp panch phoron (bengali five spice) – I like to take most of the fenugreek out
• 1 tsp ginger paste
• 1 tsp garlic paste
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/4 tsp gorom mosholla/garam masala (optional)
• 2 tsp tamarind paste (or to taste)
• 2 tsp sugar (or to taste)
• 1/2- 1 tsp salt (or to taste)

INSTRUCTIONS 

Wash your eggplant, slice into 1 to 1.5 inch disks, then wash again, and drain well.

Season the eggplant with turmeric, red chili, and salt. Make sure to cover all the pieces and gently massage the seasoning into the disks to form a light paste

Heat your pan on high, pour in your oil and let it heat up. Then fry your eggplants for 2-3 minutes, flipping halfway through until both sides are nice and golden brown with a bit of char. Take them out of the pan and onto a plate once done. Be gentle so they don’t break.

In a new pan, saute your onions on medium/medium-high till they start to brown, you can use the oil from frying the eggplants if you want.

Then add in your bay leaf, dry red chilis, and panch phoron (bengali five spice). Fry for a couple minutes until the cumin and mustard seeds start to pop (make sure the chili/onions don’t burn), and all the whole spices are fragrant.

Add in your ginger garlic paste, and fry for a few minutes until the raw smells are gone. Adding splashes of water to keep it from burning if needed.

Then add in your powdered spices amd salt (red chili, turmeric, and gorom mosholla/garam masala). Fry for a couple minutes, do not burn.

Then add in a 1/4 cup of water, reduce until the oils come out, fry in the oil for a minute and then pour in more water and repeat this step 3-4 times. The longer you go the better your curry will taste.

Then add in your tamarind paste, sugar, and some water.

You can mix everything together with a 1/4 cup of water to adjust the flavors to your liking first as it will be harder to gauge the flavors once you add it into the aromatic curry.

Let the mixture boil for a few minutes to come together. Then add about a cup of water, stir and bring back up to a simmer, then turn your heat down to medium-low.

Gently slide in your fried eggplant, and swirl the pan around to cover them in the gravy.

Let the dish simmer on medium low until you get to the consistency you want, gently flipping the eggplants halfway through. The sauce will thicken more as it sits so reduce accordingly.

Taste and adjust salt/sugar if needed. Take it off the heat, and serve warm.