A Cool Dish for a Summer Dinner

When the weather is sweltering hot, the only thing that often seems appealing to me is something cool.  Also, ice cream is always appealing to me - but that is pretty much true the whole year round :-)

This Indian dish, called "Mosaru Bajji" in my house, can roughly be translated to a "savory eggplant yogurt sauce".  It works well as part of a larger meal, or as the main dish of a light meal of its own.  This is how you make it:

You will need: 
- 1 large purple eggplant
- 3-4 tablespoons of light sour cream
- 1.5 - 2 cups of butter milk
- salt

The vagarne / tadka for this will include (see this recipe for what vagarne is): 
- 2-3 dried red chilis, broken up - use less if you are sensitive to spices
- 1 teaspoon of urad dal
- 1 teassoop of chana dal
- A pinch of hing
- 1/2 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
- 3-4 curry leaves (if you have them)
**All of these ingredients can be found at your local Indian store**

Process:
- Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
- Spray an oven safe pan with Pam Cooking Spray.
- Cut the eggplant in half (lengthwise) into two pieces.  Brush both sides of both eggplant halves lightly with extra virgin olive oil or vegetable oil.  Then cut two diagonal slits (on each eggplant half) in the white part of the eggplant.
- Put the eggplant in the oven for about 15 minutes.  Then turn it over and put it back in the oven for approximately another 15 minutes or until the purple eggplant skin has shriveled up.  At this point, take the eggplant out of the oven, and let it cool.
- Scoop out the white eggplant pulp from the skin and mash it up.  Add salt to taste.
- Add the eggplant to the portions of sour cream and buttermilk listed above and mix everything together well.  Add a little more salt to taste.
- Add 1 teaspoon of sugar to blend all the tastes together.
- Make the vagarne with about 2 teaspoons of oil and the vagarne ingredients (listed above).  Add this to the dish and your done!

The Finished Product

This dish might seem a little complicated but it's actually an easy one to make.  Mosaru Bajji goes great with naan or even on top of rice!  It's light, cool and just perfect for a summer meal out on the deck.  So give it a try, and let me know how it turns out!