Alu Baigan – Curried Indian Eggplants with Tomatoes and Potatoes

A good Indian dish is one that has a literal unfussy name. Alu Baigan, which translated literally means Potato and Eggplant and it is a classic North Indian dish. Another late summer to early fall dish! Perfect when the eggplants are firm and tomatoes are plump and ripe. What is fun about this is that I make this with so many different small variations – the herbs (sometime mint, sometimes not), spices sometimes fennel sometimes not. This humble dish never fails to deliver.

This melt in your mouth gently spiced concoction that simply melts in your mouth out with unassuming aspirations. In fact, it started out as a lone eggplant, occupying some space in the refrigerator. I asked my helper to cut it into wedges and keep this in a zip lock bag for me. This is something that she does on occasion. Her knife skills are really, really appalling, there is not too much damage one can do cubing a large eggplant.

What was an adaptation of my mother-in-law’s recipe which she makes with eggplants very finely diced and loads of tomatoes and just the right amount of potatoes. Not unlike a Indian version of a caponata! Alu Baigan in my household is a chunkier and very comforting dish that I make to celebrate late summer. What I do retain from my mother-in-law’s version is her generous use of tomatoes. I mean seriously how can there possibly be too much tomatoes in any dish especially if we are using eggplants.

Alu Baigan or Potatoes with Eggplants is a very Indian comfort dish, that is served with freshly made Indian flatbreads or chapatis. I have been known to serve this with well toasted sourdough bread, whole wheat of course.

Alu Baigan or potatoes with eggplants is quite a classic dish, there are several variations of this dish. I have for some reason never really tried it, but then as they say there is always a first time. This recipe after the first time visits me frequently every summer to fall when the weather and the leaves are ready to turn.

The few tips and tricks,

• Cut the potatoes smaller than the eggplant to cook them together.
• Start with cooking the eggplant and potatoes until fairly soft before addint the tomatoes.
• This dish packs a decent spice punch, you can vary it to your taste as you see fit.

And I even have an instant pot version now. I will however warn you, that while it is every bit as flavorful, but is a little saucier than the stovetop version. The bonus of the instant pot version is that it is more stew like and more often than not I do through in the chickpeas, resulting in a nice wholesome meal.

Pick up a copy of my Instant pot cookbook Instant Indian  here, along with The Bengali Five Spice Chronicles and Spices and Seasons.

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