Bourani Banjan Afghan Style Eggplant in Yogurt

Posted 2014-05-27 by smita ⇒ follow

This is a very delicious recipe from Afghanistan. Its a tomato based gravy dish with eggplant and bell pepper garnished with Greek yogurt and served on a platter.
The original recipe is cooked with generous quantity of oil. However, this is my version which is low oil and totally guilt-free.

Bourani Banjan

Preparation Time: 15 minutes on stove top / 30-40 minutes in oven grill
Cooking Time: 20-25 minutes
Makes: 2-3 servings

Ingredients
1 medium sized eggplant
3/4 cup diced tomato (keep the juices while cutting)
Garlic 10-12 big cloves
2 teaspoon paprika powder OR chili flakes
1 to 1 and half Bell pepper (any colour)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon oil
2 teaspoon Salt OR to taste
1/2 cup Greek Yogurt
Pepper for seasoning
Dried mint for garnishing OR mint leaves

Method

Rub little oil on the eggplant and pepper slices. Grill them in the oven or on a stove rack grill.

Peppers will cook in a few minutes, eggplant will take longer. The skin starts shrinking as it cooks. Do not throw away the juices that ooze from the eggplant.

Grilling the eggplant

In the meanwhile, take oil in a pan and add finely diced garlic about 10 cloves. Saute for a minute

Now add the diced tomatoes and stir well. Add the salt, paprika, turmeric. Cover and let it cook.

Make one inch squares of pepper. Remove the eggplant skin (comes off easily). Make longish pieces (size of your little finger) of the eggplant pulp

Add this to the tomato gravy. Cover and cook till the entire thing forms a kind of gravy.

To prepare the yogurt dressing, take the Greek yogurt and add about 2 garlic cloves, cut in very tiny pieces or crushed. Add a pinch of salt and combine well.

Yogurt dressing

For plating, smear little yogurt dressing on the plate and roughly spread it. Now add the eggplant gravy in a single layer. Again spread few dollops of the yogurt and then the eggplant