Chipo was over for dinner last night and our menu for the evening included this dish, which came about quite by accident. Chipo being Chipo, brought over some goodies from her last trip home to Zimbabwe – A bottle of ‘The Beach House’ white wine (Sauvignon Blanc Semillon), T-Bone steaks, a lovely handmade bookmark with a porcupine quill embedded within and a lovely beaded necklace for Cherie. Cherie had never seen a porcupine quill before and she was quite fascinated!
The menu was clear prawn soup with shiitake mushrooms, steamed rice, Thai green curry with lettuce and berry salad. I realised I had mixed up too much coconut milk and really didn’t want to throw the lot away. So here’s what we did.
You’ll need:
- 4 Eggs
- 4 small aubergines/egg plant/baingan cut into halves
- 300ml Coconut milk
- 1 onion, finely sliced
- 2 large cloves of garlic, finely sliced
- 5 spice powder
- 1 green chili, slit
- Salt to taste
- Cornflour for thickening [optional]
Method:
- Heat some oil, put in the onions, bring to half brown, add the garlic, slowly bring the onions to fully browned.
- Hard boil the eggs, peel, cut in half, set aside
- Slice the tops off the aubergines, cut in half, sprinkle the cut half with salt, leave for 20 minutes, wash well, drain.
- Add the coconut milk when the onions are fully browned.
- Put in a couple of pinches of 5 spice powder and salt to taste. Bring to the boil
- Add the washed and drained aubergines to the coconut milk in the pan. Simmer for 10 minutes.
- Thicken with a solution of cornflour mixed with cold water. Careful – you don’t want jelly.
- Drain the gravy into a serving bowl. Place all the eggs on one side and the aubergine on the other.
Serve with white rice. It was delicious IMO.
I’ve been trying to make soup as clear as possible with enough flavor, without clouding the mixture. This was one of my best attempts yet. Put prawn heads in cold water, brought it to a boil, skimmed off the scum repeatedly, strained the mixture and added salt, green chili, star anise, cinnamon and black cardamom. It came out quite well - you could see the bottom of the bowl quite clearly and the flavor was delicate and quite nice.
- Sid
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Aubergines in my opinion are Kings of vegetable kingdom. During my travels in Greek Islands, Cyprus, Turkey and Italy, I came across amazing array of aubergine dishes. Colours of Aubergines range from purple, white, red, yellow, pitch black and cross between purple and white. In UK, each council provides land tracts of land at nominal annual rate -£18 where one can grow ones own vegetables. Mine are organic and taste much different then green house variety. Last year I grew aubergines and was amazed at the amount I harvested.
My favourite Aubergine dish is prepared by mum. Aubergines stuffed with Massala and shallow fried. Over the years, I have experimented – aubergine in dhall is nice – though another of my favourites is aubergine and brown chick pea tikah massala.
Your dish appears to be an improvised one – these are best spur of the moment dishes. Though you have not written what you did with the T-Bone Steaks.
Thanks for sharing and glimpse into your kitchen culinary skills.
Karam
.-= Karam Bharij´s last blog ..Gay Pride festival 2008 Manchester =-.
That looks delicious! Aubergines and coconut milk go well together!
Cheers,
Rosa
This looks quite innovative. Why don’t I ever think of coming up with a new dish when I mix up too much of an ingredient?:)
Great stuff, Sid!
Thank you @Rosa, @Sharon.