Roasted eggplant soup and the hate-list from my childhood
Some twenty years ago, if someone told me 'It's kathrikkai (eggplant) soup for dinner' I'd have won the 100 metre sprint. Yeah, eggplant was probably the only vegetable in my hate-list. Sometimes my tongue would itch after I ate a piece of this, so I hastily assumed that I'm allergic to eggplant and
Ingredients
- 1 eggplant globe , medium sized (around 350 grams)
- 3 tomatoes medium
- 1 onion medium , peeled and sliced thinly
- 5 small cloves garlic
- eggplant Some oil to smear on
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 3 cups water vegetable stock /
- 1 tsp salt or salt to taste
- black pepper freshly ground
- 1 tsp basil dried
- Olive oil
Instructions
- Smear the eggplant with some oil and roast directly on the flame, turning sides*. In under 7 minutes, the skin will be completely charred and the eggplant softened right through. Keep aside to cool. Peel the skin, chop flesh roughly and keep aside.
- One by one, pierce the tomatoes with a fork and grill on open flame, until entire skin is charred. Each tomato will take around 2-3 minutes. Peel when cool enough to handle. Chop roughly, discarding the seeds.
- In a small wok, heat 1 tsp olive oil. Fry the garlic cloves and onion slices on medium heat, till golden and soft.
- In a blender, puree the eggplant, tomato and softened onion-garlic to a fine paste, using water / vegetable stock as required. Season with salt, pepper. Bring this to a simmer in a pot, adding dried basil at this stage.
- Remove in bowls, topping with some olive oil and freshly crushed black pepper. I topped mine with some Cajun seasoning for a nice kick.
Notes
Serve with soup sticks for a light dinner or with a nice foccassia bread and pasta for a complete Italian meal.
It was a yummy soup with deep adult flavours, a nice farewell to the lovely winter we experienced in this new city! I have a feeling, this soup will taste good chilled too.
*If you don't have access to an open flame, use the method described in the recipe from The Hindu.