Bagara Baingan is a flavorful, tasty curry made with small eggplants in a tangy, creamy gravy made with coconut, peanuts, sesame seeds, tamarind, and Indian spices. This vegan and gluten-free eggplant dish is a specialty of Hyderabadi cuisine and is often served with any number of different Biryani recipes.
Bagara is the Hyderabadi word for tempering or “tadka,” which is simply blooming spices in hot oil. While Baingan is the Hindi word for brinjal (a.k.a. aubergine or eggplant). As such, Bagara Baingan roughly translates to “eggplant that is tempered.”
This popular vegetarian recipe from the Hyderabadi cuisine is often made to serve as a side dish with Biryani, Roti, or even plain rice. This Hyderabadi Bagara Baingan recipe has 3 of my favorite ingredients in them: coconut, sesame seeds, and peanuts.
To make this preparation, roasted spices, nuts and seeds are ground to a creamy fine consistency which is then cooked further with sautéed eggplants.
This recipe is adapted from Chandra Padmanabhan’s cookbook Simply South: Traditional Vegetarian Cooking. This book has many good recipes including varieties of sambar, rasam, vegetables and rice recipes.
