In a pickle.

There's something horribly indulgent about popping open a jar of something pickled.  Whether it be cucumbers or green chilli's or perhaps a chutney, the very thought of pickles makes me salivate in gushing volumes.

I will eat almost anything pickled - only exceptions being eggs and dead babies, in that order.  I guess it must be down to my unerring affection for vinegar.  

Pickling, in vinegar, is a fairly well-established method of food preservation.  Pickling, in a cooking style is a slightly lesser known technique.  In Indian cuisine, the concept of Achari is to cook with pickling spices, such as fennel, coriander and nigella seeds, but to do so quickly, in a pan and without the need to hermetically-seal and lay-down for 3 months plus.

This is a recipe for brinjal or baigan achari, or aubergines cooked in a pickling style.  It uses a heady paste of ginger, garlic and ground pickling spices added to a thick tomato-based sauce to create a tingling eruption of hot and soured flavours.  

Aubergines, or egg plants as they are known in the US are a common ingredient in Indian cuisine.  I always wondered why the Americans called them eggplants - why would a tear-shaped purple monstrosity ever be consider egg-like?  The Americans, it seems tend to receive aubergines of a white/cream colour, generally ovoid in shape - hence their name.  For this recipe you can use the traditional purple ones, or indeed, the streaked white and lilac ones that you can find in indian food stores.

I have two recipes for this:  one from the hallowed Madhur Jaffrey book that I have had since university days, and the second is a more recent recipe from Rick Stein's Asian travels.  My only recommendation is that you don't shallow-fry them in oil, as Madhur Jaffrey advises.  This leads to both a huge amount of oil being used, and very saturated aubergines.

Here's how I do it:  

Aubergine curry cooked in pickling (achari) spices

•    Blend 2.5cm ginger with 6 garlic gloves to a smooth paste - add some water to assist this process.
•   Cut the aubergines into wedges, not slices alongways.  They need to be around 2cm thick.
•   Heat up a heat-set frying pan, or griddle until it is hot.
•   Brush one side of an aubergine round with olive oil.  Set it down on the griddle.  Cook until it is reddish brown.  Meanwhile brush the other side with oil too.  Flip it when it's ready.
•   When all the aubergines are done remove from the pan.
•   Add 3 tbsp oil to a pan.  When hot add a good pinch of asofaetida, 1 tsbp fennel seeds, 1 tsp kalonji (nigella) or cumin seeds.  When they fizz add the paste.
•   Add a can of peeled plum tomatoes. 1 tsp ground coriander, 1/2 tsp ground turmeric, 1 tsp cayenne pepper and 1 tsp salt.
•   Cook for 5-6 mins.
•   Put the aubergines in.  Cook on medium for 5 mins.
•   Cover and turn to low heat.  Cook for final 10 mins.