Crockpot Begun Bhartha - Slow-Cooked Eggplant

Slow-Cooked Begun Bhartha

I was first introduced to Baingan/Begun Bhartha while living in Defence Colony, a suburb of New Delhi in India. Around the corner from where we lived was a dhaba or roadside restaurant which are most often found on highways and the outskirts of cities, towns and villages. Dhabas serve Punjabi food and are frequented by truckers because the food is generally simple, rustic and cheap. My favourite dishes to order from our neghbourhood dhaba were Baingan Bhartha, Keema Mattar and Naan. 

Begun or baingan is eggplant and bhartha refers to any vegetable that is roasted and mashed. Begun bhartha is the most common dish prepared in this way. The big and round eggplants are usually roasted over an unoon or charcoal stove. The charred skin is then removed, the pulp mashed and cooked with tomatoes, onions along with other ingredients on the stovetop. It's a rustic dish that requires a labour-intensive and time-consuming process.

This is where the crockpot, once again, comes to the rescue. I like Japaness eggplant which is diced along with all the other vegetables, dumped into the crockpot and allowed to cook on low without manual intervention for 3-4 hours. The resulting bhartha comes out looking like baba-ghanoush and tasting delicious!

Crockpot Rogan Josh - Slow-Cooked Lamb Curry

Crockpot Rogan Josh

The crockpot is probably the most under-utilized appliance in my kitchen. It's ideal for these wintry days when temperatures plummet to single digits which makes it bone-chilling to open doors and windows so the house can be aired out. Today I dusted off the crockpot and boldly plugged it in. 

I've never used the crockpot (or slow-cooker as it's sometimes called) to cook Indian meat curries. My sister has, but I think she did a lot of the prep on the stovetop and then put it all in the crockpot to cook slowly. I decided to take the shortest shortcut possible, combined everything in the crockpot and allowed it to do its thing. The result was totally amazing. 

My Beli Mashi (Mum's sister) spent a few months with us when I was living in California and she taught me to make Kashmiri Rogan Josh. I marinated the meat with the rest of the ingredients for a couple of hours, then dumped all of it into the crockpot with sliced onions and set it on high for 2 hours. After giving everything a good mix, the crockpot was set to low, potatoes were added and cooked for 5 hours.

The meat just fell off the bones and the potatoes were cooked to perfection. I doubt meat curries in my house will ever be cooked on the stovetop again. Without the botheration of stirring and making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan, it was completely stress-free cooking!

Quick & Easy Burmese Ohno Khauk Swe - Coconut Chicken Noodle Soup

Ohno Khauk Swe in the Bowl
Boiled Egg Noodles
Chicken in Coconut Soup
Garnishes

This Burmese meal is a popular street food that is brought to your doorstep by hawkers on foot in Yangon, Myanmar. It is a breakfast meal which we can now have any time of the day because it's prepared at home.

Ohno Khauk Swe in the Bowl

The one-pot meal comprises a bowl of noodles topped with chicken in a coconut soup and garnished with a number of fresh and deep-fried condiments. Gather friends and family together to share in this heartwarming meal that is ideal for a rainy or snowy day.

Boiled Egg Noodles

Fresh egg noodles are readily available in North America at Asian markets. These are easy to prepare by simply soaking in boiling water for less than 5 minutes. Dried egg noodles take between 10-12 minutes to cook through. Either way, the noodles should be cooked just prior to serving and should be drained and rinsed in cold water to prevent clumping.

Garnishes

2-3 limes, cut in wedges

Cilantro, chopped

6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled & diced

Deep-fried garlic

1 large or 2 medium white onion, sliced

1 bunch green onions, diced

Deep-fried diced onions

2 Tbsp. chickpea flour, toasted in a dry skillet until golden brown

Chicken in Coconut Soup

This soup could be quite tedious to prepare as outlined in a previous post. I've been toying with this quick and easy method for preparing this dish which usually requires that the chicken be browned and onion made into a paste in the blender. 

The shortcuts used to make this soup included the use of a pressure cooker to cook a whole chicken in a red lentil soup base that was flavoured with diced onions, garlic, lemon grass powder and paprika. The cooked red lentils served to thicken the soup and flavour it.

An alternative method to cooking this in a pressure cooker is to use a slow cooker or crock pot. Follow steps 1 through 7 on low setting for 6 hours or on high for 4 hours. Shred the chicken as in step 7 and add back to the crock pot along with the coconut milk and cook for another half an hour.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, cut in 8 pieces & marinated in 1/2 salt & 1/4 tsp. turmeric.

1 cup red lentils or masoor dal, washed and drained

4 cups chicken broth or water

1 large onion, peeled & minced

8-10 cloves garlic, peeled & minced

1 tsp. Kashmiri mirch/paprika/cayenne pepper

1 tsp. lemon grass powder

1 tsp. shrimp powder

1 tsp. shrimp paste

1 (14 oz.) can coconut milk (cream settles on top of can)

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients, except coconut milk, in a pressure cooker.
2. Bring to a boil and adjust salt to taste.
3. Cover, bring to full pressure and lower heat to medium.
4. Simmer for 20 minutes, remove from heat and allow pressure to dissipate.
5. Remove cover from pressure cooker and carefully take out chicken pieces.
6. Separate chicken from bones & discard skin and bones.
7. Chop chicken into bite-size pieces and return to pressure cooker.
8. Add coconut milk plus cream and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes.

Allow guests to serve themselves with noodles, soup and garnishes.

Slow-Cooked Apple Raisin Oatmeal

Left: Apple Raisin Oatmeal in Crock Pot
Right: Plated Apple Raisin Oatmeal

This is the easiest ever crock pot recipe for downright delicious oatmeal! The only problem is that I have to manually turn on and off my crock pot, so had to stay awake until midnight the night before to turn it on. It cooked for 8.5 hours overnight and it's so hard to describe the incredible aroma that permeated throughout the house this morning.

Oatmeal has always been a favorite breakfast item going all the way back to our childhood in Darjeeling, India. The weather in Darjeeling was often cold and damp and the luxury of having a hot bowl of oatmeal was an infrequent affair because it was reserved for uneventful weekends which were few and far between. 

Mum always salted her oatmeal as it was cooking that adds a special touch to this dish. I left the peel on the Fuji apples which cooked down to a super soft consistency and yet managed to retain some texture and shape. The raisins absorbed as much liquid as they could and came out plump and juicy. And there's no describing the texture of the oatmeal which was soft and totally delicious! 

It's so easy to do that there's no excuse not to cook oatmeal this way from here on out and you can look forward to a most aromatic oatmeal breakfast the next morning.