Homemade eggplant masala

An exciting thing has happened. Ever since I started a new job, became a grown-up, and bought a grown-up Instant Pot, I'm cooking Indian food from scratch almost every week.

For those who don't know about it: the Instant Pot is a glorified pressure cooker that has taken on a cult following in many culinary corners, especially among Indian home cooks. It has been described as a liberating gadget that allows busy working moms to pull together family meals in no time. (Probably some busy working dads are involved, too.) For those who cook meat, I can imagine the IP makes laborious recipes newly accessible. For vegetarians like me, it's a tool for cooking dry beans with virtually no soaking, steaming beets, creating flavorful veggie broths, chili, dal, rice pudding and who knows what else. I've become a bit obsessed.

The key is to join a Facebook group like this one. Inspiration galore:

Last night my music trio played a mini-concert for their families and I made an Indian feast to celebrate. On the plate were Punjabi-style dishes and one item from Kerala, all vegan, all gluten free, healthy and delish:

• Eggplant masala, the featured dish of this post
• Dal makhani 
• Erissery, or pumpkin and bean curry
• Carrot salad, yogurt, chutneys, the works

A trio of delicious curries.

Bringing together two of my favorite things: music and stuffing my face.

The eggplant masala might not be a real dish (?) but who's counting. I first made a big batch of onion masala sauce from this awesome blog—note that this sauce can be made ahead and frozen in small batches to whip out on a weeknight. Then I halved and roasted these little eggplants in the oven, mixed it all together, dumped in some frozen peas and voilà.

I made the sauce already the night before. Easy peasy.

The other two dishes turned out great too, but I might not make South Indian food that often due to the challenge of procuring good fresh coconut. IN HAWAI'I. What?? I'm as baffled as you are. I hacked open a coconut in my parking lot only to find it was putrid inside, returned it to the store, and the manager opened every last one to find me a replacement, and even the freshest of them still smelled slightly of soap. Shouldn't this be the single easiest thing to procure on a tropical island?

It makes a good backdrop to the eggplant, though.

The dal recipe can be found here. For the Erissery, provided by a home cook without a blog, you'll have to join that Facebook group. I like having both North and South Indian flavors on the same plate. Punjabi dishes have that warming comfort-food quality, with coriander and garam-masala and tomato and onion, while the South Indian flavors are more pungent and aromatic, coconut and yogurt and curry leaves and mustard seed. Maybe a next step in my Instant Pot training is to hone in on a single region instead of a smorgasbord.

And if you're hankering for carrot salad:
Peel and shred a bag of carrots. Add olive oil, lime juice, about 20 crushed coriander seeds, 2 sliced scallions, salt to taste, and chopped cilantro.

Meanwhile, I shouldn't get too cocky about my Indian cooking skills. I'm a haole with a lot of room for growth. But the flautist did just e-mail me, "thanks for one of the best meals I've had in a while. Really tasty!!"

Let's relay the thanks to its proper recipient: Indian home cooks on social media.