Katrikai Thugayal/ Eggplant or Brinjal paste

Eggplant is one of my favourite vegetable. Its a good source of potassium and have known to have helped in treating high BP. Its one of the very tasty and simple dishes.

Things we need
Eggplant - Big one
Urad dal - 3 spoons
Red chillies - 4
Tamarind Paste - 1 spoon
Salt
Hing/ Asafoetida

Now the little tricky part in this is the cooking of the Brinjal.
Traditionally, the brinjal has to be brushed with oil and Its actually smoked or burnt on stove top.
I tried out using a traditonal oven as well as a toaster oven. The toaster oven consumes less power and time. say 20 mins. So just brush it with oil and keep it in the oven at 350 degree. The skin would be burnt to almost black. Take it out and allow it cool a bit, then peel out the skin and mash the brinjal a bit with your fingers.
If you've a stove top/gas  burner, brush oil, leave it on the stand and allow it to burn & keep changing sides until the entire brinjal is well burnt & coooked inside

Now with a little oil, roast the urad dal until light brown, red chillies, asafoetida . Then grind the tamarind paste and salt well then add the dal and just grind it coarsly. finally add this to the mashed brinjal and mix well.

That is all. Just mix it with hot rice with little bit of ghee or gingely oil.
It is so yummy.