Baigani aka Brinjal Fritters

There is something sinful about fried foods - evil cousins of another sinful food "Chocolate"! ;) I have promised myself to eat healthy as much as possible with a resolution to remain vegeterian for this entire year but these two types of food are something I am not able to stay tempt-free from. Well, I am human being after all is my excuse else I would be perfect..lol! So here is my "Baigani" aka Eggplant\Brinjal fritter. Baigani is from Baigana, the Odiya word for Eggplant.

There is only so many items that I know to make with Eggplant and they get spoiled so quickly, so the moment I come back from grocery, it is like a "tick-tock" going on in my head if the Eggplants will end up as a food item or in the garbage! If I could get a cent for every Eggplant spoiled, I would definitely have a dollar by now! :p Enjoy the recipe!

Ingredients:

Eggplant\Brinjal- 1 large
Gram flour\Besan - 1.5 cup
Ajwain - 1/2 tsp (aids digestion)
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp, as per taste
Salt - 1 tsp, as per taste
Bicarbonate soda - 1/2 tsp (optional, for fluffiness)
Fresh Ginger - 1 tsp, grated
Rice flour- 1tbsp (optional, for crunchiness)

Method:

Mix the dry ingredients Ajwain, Red chilli powder, Salt with gram flour.
Add 1/2 cup water at a time to make a slightly runny mixture (not watery) - add slowly so that you are not adding more water than required. Adding extra gram flour to make up for extra water later messes up the texture!
Add ginger and mix well.
Add the soda a few mins before frying and mix well.
A tbsp of rice flour will give it a crunchy texture (optional).

Cut the Brinjals into thin 1/2 inch slices.

Heat 2-3 cups canola oil for deep frying. When the oil becomes hot enough so that when you drop some gram flour mixture from above into the oil, it should rise to the top immediately.

Dip the Brinjal slices into the gram flour mixture one slice at a time and drop slowly and carefully into the hot oil.

Let it cook one side before tossing it over. It is done when it stops sizzling in the hot oil.

Watch the oil heat - keep changing it from High to Medium to make sure the fritters do not burn, oil does not smoke, temperature drops as the Brinjal slices are dropped into the oil so the heat needs to be adjusted to accomodated for that as well as making sure that the eggplants are well cooked. Use paper towel to soak away the extra oil from the fritters.

Flavor with rock salt for added tanginess!

Enjoy this while they are hot and crisp on a rainy day with bhel/mudi. Relishing them while warmly snuggled in the blanket with a good engaging book for company - oh, the world is all right! :) Look forward to hear from you about what is your comfort "world is all right!" moment.

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Update on 04/13/2012:

This  goes to Surabhi's event "Let's Part Every Month" with this month's theme being "Snacks".The event page is here. Check out all the wonderful posts her event has received!