We cooked this for a veggie dinner party and it was really tasty. There’s a lot of stages involved so leave yourself plenty of time. We cooked it in the morning and reheated it on the hob while we steamed the rice and that worked well. You might want to ease up on the chilli depending on your audience – it’s quite hot.
Spicy aubergine stew – to feed 6 generously
- 1 kg aubergines
- 3 medium onions
- 2 tbsp groundnut oil
- 8 green cardamom pods
- 2 tbsp coriander seeds
- 2 tsp black peppercorns
- 4 big garlic cloves
- a thumb-sized piece of ginger
- 2 rounded tsp turmeric
- 10 medium-sized tomatoes, peeled and seeded
- 500ml vegetable stock
- 2 x 400ml tins coconut milk
- 4 finely chopped red chillies (or less if you like it milder)
- a small bunch of mint
- a bigger handful of coriander
Cut the aubergines into big chunks and tip them into a colander, put it in the sink and sprinkle sea salt all over. Leave them for a minimum of half an hour.
Crush the cardamom pods with the flat blade of a knife and shake out the little seeds into a mortar. Add the coriander seeds and the peppercorns and grind them to a coarse powder.
Peel and roughly chop the onions, then cook them in a very large pan over a moderate heat until they are soft and translucent.
Thinly slice the garlic. Peel the ginger and cut it into thin matchsticks. Stir the garlic and ginger into the onions with the turmeric and ground spices. Add the tomatoes.
Rinse the aubergine of their salt and pat dry. Grill them on a ridged cast-iron pan until they start to soften and have griddle marks all over. This will take many batches. Add them to the onions, then pour in the stock and bring to the boil.
Add the coconut milk, chillies and some salt and simmer for 45 minutes. The aubergines should be very soft but not falling apart.
Lift out the aubergines, tomatoes and some of the onion with a draining spoon. Reduce the rest of the sauce by boiling hard for 5 minutes. Now ladle most, but not all, of the sauce into a blender and whizz until smooth and thick (watch you don’t scald yourself – we used a stick blender in a separate pot).
Return the vegetables and sauce to the original pot, then chop the fresh herbs and stir them in with a final seasoning of salt and pepper.
Serve with steamed rice.
(Original recipe from Nigel Slater’s Tender Volume 1)
Jono & Jules do food & wine 
I love this recipe, but find it a lot of work. To shorten the process I don’t bother salting the aubergine, just chop and fry it, I use two standard cans of tomatoes instead of the fresh, and I use the ready chopped chili. It still tastes great!
Hi there. We’re not entirely convinced of the need to salt aubergines either. Good to hear that it’s still good with a few shortcuts. J&J