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Brinjal Pitlay

Ingredients

3/4 cup of toor dal
1 Big Brinjal
1 Tomato (optional)
lemon sized tamarind
4 green chillies
3 red chillies
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp chana dal
2 tsps sambar powder
curry leaves
dhaniya
pinch of asafoetida (hing/perungayam)
turmeric
chilli powder
salt

Method:

1. Pressure cook toor dal. Make sure the water to toor dal proportion is 3:1. Add a pinch of asafoetida and a dash of turmeric.
2. Cut the brinjal into big pieces and keep it in the microwave for about 10 mins. This process is needed to remove the skin of the brinjal. In case you do not have a microwave, you could pressure cook the brinjal too.
3. While the dal and brinjal get ready, prepare the tadka: Heat the oil and add mustard, chana dal, red chillies, green chillies, curry leaves, turmeric and red chilli powder.
4. In a saucepan, heat the tamarind with a glass of water. Get the tamarind extract.
5. Put the tadka in this tamarind extract.
6. Check if the Brinjal is soft. Remove the skin and mash the vegetable well. Add this in the extract too.
7. In case you like tomatoes, cut a tomato in four pieces and add this to the extract and heat it. This is optional, though.
8. Add sambar powder and heat for sometime.
9. Meanwhile, if the dal is ready, mash it well and keep it ready.
10. Once the extract, with tadka, brinjal and tomato, is hot enough, add the mashed dal in this and heat for another 5 mins.

And voila! your dish is ready to eat. This dish should not be very solid at the same time it should not be too dilute. This can be consumed with rice/ pongal/ upma.