Eggplant Fesenjan and more from Meera Sodha

There is a special pleasure in cooking so much that you send your mealtime companions directly into a coma. 

None of the recipes I made tonight are mine, nor should they be: I made five Indian dishes and I'm white as a lily. So I defer to the experts.

Most of what you see on this table (homemade ceramics aside ahem) comes from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, Fresh India by Meera Sodha. I have made about 1/4 of the book so far and everything, I mean everything, comes out fabulous. 

But yes, this is an eggplant blog. And eggplants you shall have. This is Sodha's "Eggplant Fesenjan" (p. 115), which is actually an adaptation of a Persian dish that was commonly served on the tables of 16th-century Mughal emperors. (Um, cool.)

The sauce on the bottom is made with pomegranate molasses and walnuts, among much else. Apart from being quite sweet (savory folks: consider using less honey than stated in the recipe), I was delighted with the punchy flavor and the ease of making it look gorgeous. Pomegranates are photogenic. 

A note to my fellow Jews: this will be an absolutely perfect dish for Passover. 

Here's what else I made.

On the bottom there is a butternut squash cafreal (Sodha, p. 67). This is a dish from Goa, a city on the western coast that was the headquarters of Portuguese India until it was annexed by Nehru in 1961. Sodha has adapted the traditional chicken cafreal, a dish that mixes Indian with Portuguese flavors; the sauce is not unlike a Portuguese mojo verde + ginger and coconut milk. It turned out so good that I melted into the chair a little at the first bite.

To the right, I made palak pakoda using this recipe. Flavors were spot on. My frying technique needs work.

Edging into the picture below, you'll see a good old fashioned aloo matar made in the Instant Pot. It's a quick weekday classic. And satisfying. Recipe hails from Meeta Arora at Piping Pot Curry.

And the flaming pink star of the show: beet raita (Sodha, p. 248). It's topped with a tarka (hot flavored oil) of popped mustard seeds and crispy curry leaves. 

If you take away anything from this post, it's that I can't recommend Sodha's book enough. But also, I will say, a menu like this used every inch of my kitchen, every pan, every baking tray, three cutting boards, and I had to hand wash the food processor three times, so: I wouldn't agree with Sodha's subtitle that these are "quick, easy" recipes "for every day." On normal days, when you're not celebrating winter break with zeal, just pick ONE recipe and eat it with rice and yogurt and lime pickle from a jar. 

We ate all of this and now we are strewn about like beached sea lions.