Apple Eggplant Curry – Instant Pot Kashmiri Baingan
This Apple Eggplant Curry – Instant Pot Kashmiri Baingan Curry is the ideal dinner with multiple layers of marked Indian flavors. The apple takes it all in, leaving you with a remarkable, gratifying dish.
Equipment
- Electric Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 3 indian eggplants, small (6.2 oz)
- 2 apples, granny smith 1.18 pounds
- 6 tbsp oil of choice
- 1/2 tsp asafoetida (heeng)
- 1 whole dried red chili pepper
- 2 whole black cardamom pod (kali elaichi)
- 2 whole cloves (laung)
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
- 1 and 1/2 tbsp kashmiri chili powder
- 1 and 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger (sonth)
- 1 tsp ground fennel (saunf powder)
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin (jeera powder)
- 1 and 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp garam masala
- 5 green chillis, small (hari mirch) divided, optional
Instructions
Prep
- Rinse the eggplants by running them under cold water and wiping dry with a paper towel. In Kashmiri recipes, you don’t slice off the top of the eggplant. You keep the stem intact. Cut the eggplant body in half lengthwise/vertically. Further, cut each eggplant to two more half’s. So each eggplant will have 4 pieces. 12 pieces in all for 3 eggplants.
- Rinse the apples well. Set the apple upright on your cutting board. Then, use a sharp knife to cut the fruit in half directly through the core. Use your knife to scoop out the seeded portion of each apple slice. Next, slice each of these halves in half along the stem axis. You should have four roughly-equal quarters. Further chop the apple horizontally. Each apple will yield 8 pieces. The skin needs to be intact and not peeled.
- Slit the green chilis, but keep them intact.
Cook
- Select sauté on the Instant Pot and adjust to normal. Add oil to the pot. When the oil is hot add in the chopped eggplants and let them sauté for 6 minutes until they brown. Once they brown take them out from the pot and set them aside in a plate.
- Add in the chopped apples and sauté for another 4 minutes.
- After 4 minutes are up, add in asafoetida, whole dried red chili pepper, whole black cardamom pods, cloves, cumin seeds. Stir the whole spices on the side gently and let them sauté for a minute.
- Next add in Kashmiri chili powder and ¼ cup water. Stir well. Make sure to stir gently without breaking the apples.
- Add in ground ginger, ground fennel, ground cumin, salt, garam masala, 3 green chillis and 1 cup water. Mix gently.
- Furthermore, add the eggplants back in the pot. Mix gently and make sure the apples and eggplants are coated with spices.
- Finally, close the lid and select manual/high pressure for 0 minutes. When cooking is complete, use quick pressure release to depressurize. Then, transfer the cooked dish in a serving bowl, garnish with 2 green chillis and serve over steamed rice.
Notes
- Traditionally the eggplants are deep fried and the apples are stir-fried. However, I have eliminated the deep-frying step and have stir fried both the eggplants and the apples. Please feel free to deep fry the eggplants if you want to. They need to change color to brown when stir fried or deep fried.
- On a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of spice levels, I would place this dish at 3.5, with 1 being low and 5 being high.
- You can eliminate or reduce the amount of green chillis if you cant tolerate heat.
- The pressure time is zero minutes. Anything over that will make the apples mushy.
- The whole spices (cardamom pods, cloves, and whole dried red chili pepper, can be discarded, they don't need to be consumed).