I always loved the garlic bread sticks served with pizzas in Domino’s pizza, Bangalore. Though many people did not like Domino’s, I loved them back in B’lore. I am yet to try them here in US. I never knew how they prepared the garlic bread sticks, which were soft, crunchy and had amazing taste.
Then, while watching a recipe show on TV, I saw this dish. It was a program on ‘Udaya news’, a Kannada channel, were people from all over Karnataka used to come and show their favorite recipes. I noted down the recipe but never thought it would turn out great. When we came to US, I didn’t know were to find the same bread. I was missing it badly. So one day I tried this recipe and I simply loved the taste. Usually when I buy ‘ pav ‘ for making pav bhaji , half the packet of pav still remains. I always make garlic bread with them and it is a favorite evening snack at my home these days :D.
Ingredients: 4 pav or buns 1-2 tbl spn salted butter 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1/2 tea spn oregano
Method: Slit the pav or bun into two. Melt the butter. Apply butter (keep aside around 2 tea spns of butter) on all sides of buns. Now mix garlic and remaining butter. Apply this on the pav (only on one side, preferably inside part of the pav /bun). Spread some oregano. Preheat oven to 300 F for 5min. Line up a oven proof dish with parchment paper. Keep the pav /bun with the garlic side facing up in the dish and bake it for around 15mins at 300F.The aroma of garlic and oregano fills the entire house within minutes :). Serve it with any dip. I like to eat them without any dips.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 20mins
Every Indian cusine has its own recipe for this dish. I have been reading about this (‘Baingan ka bhartha’) in many blogs now. So I thought of posting the Konkani recipe of this dish.
At my native, we never had electric boiler to heat water for bath. Instead we have a big iron vessel where water is heated (the vessel is called ‘bhaan’). Dry wood is used to heat water (the arrangement where the fire is put is called as ‘bhaana ranni’). So at the day time, mom used to make smoked eggplant by carefully frying the eggplants in this ‘bhaana ranni’. But as time passed, this method became obsolete. Though people still use this arrangement to heat water, nobody actually uses it for frying eggplant.
I have seen some people who directly keep the eggplant on stove to smoke it. But the problem with this method is, when egg plant is fried, the water starts falling on the burner. So what is the easy way? I felt Pachi’s way as the easiest one. Apply some oil to all sides of eggplant. Keep it on a hot tava and close the eggplant with a vessel and heat the tava. After every five minutes or so, just check if the egg plant is cooked, if yes, turn it. It takes around 10mins to smoke a big eggplant.
This bharth is usually served along with urad-papad (which are very very famous in North Kanara and called as ‘udida happal’ in Konkani. These papads have a strong asafoetida smell) as a side dish with rice.
Ingredients: Eggplant 1 big Coconut 1/2 cup Green chillies or red chillies 3-4 Tamarind 1/2 tea spn Asafoetida a pinch Salt
If the eggplants available in India are used, increase the number. After smoking, atleast 1 to 1 and 1/2 cups of pulp should remain.
Method: Smoke the eggplant as explained above.
Remove the skin.
Grind coconut, chillies, tamarind, salt and asafoetida adding very little or no water (since eggplant has a lot of water in it, do not use more water while grinding). Mash the eggplant with hand and mix it with chutney. (Aayi adds the eggplant directly to mixer/blender before removing the chutney and grind just for one round. Eggpant should NOT be ground completely).
If red chilli is used, raw onion pieces are added to this bharth. Serve with urad papad.
Serves : 4 Preparation time : 20mins
