Sri Lankan · Side
Wambatu Moju
- Intermediate
- 35 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with a warm current of chile, acid holding everything up to the light, opening aromatic and staying there.
Ingredients
- 600 g aubergine, quartered lengthways and cut into 6 cm batons
- 1 red onion, 120 g, cut into thin wedges
- 300 ml coconut oil for frying
- 4 green chillies, halved lengthways
- 3 garlic cloves, sliced
- 3 tbsp white vinegar
- 2 tsp caster sugar
- 1 tsp brown mustard seeds, ground
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 0.5 tsp ground black pepper
- 1.5 tsp salt
Equipment
Deep-fry pot
The skills inside
Knife cuts: dice, julienne, bias
Allergen screen
Found: mustard
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Rub the aubergine batons with the turmeric and 1 tsp of the salt, leave 15 minutes, then blot them dry. 15 min
- Fry them in hot coconut oil in batches until they are collapsed and deep brown at the edges, well past golden, and lift onto paper.
- Pour off all but 2 tbsp of the oil and fry the onion, chillies and garlic until the onion is limp and browning at the tips.
- Whisk the ground mustard, vinegar, sugar, chilli powder, pepper and remaining salt to a loose paste, pour it into the pan and let it hiss and thicken to a glaze.
- Fold the hot aubergine through, then cool completely; the colour deepens and the sharpness rounds after a night in the fridge.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Knife cuts: dice, julienne, bias 150 recipes
- Take any three pieces from anywhere in the pile: they match closely enough in every dimension that you would have to measure them to argue otherwise.
- The cut faces are flat and clean rather than ragged or crushed; leaves and herbs are cut through, not bruised, and the board carries no dark smear where they were.
- The stated size is the actual size, held against a rule or a known reference rather than called about right.
- Everything in the pile is the shape that was asked for: no wedges, no half pieces, and no offcuts swept in to avoid waste.
- They cook evenly, which is the entire point: at the end of cooking nothing is still raw and nothing has collapsed.
Where it goes wrong The knife was dull, or the vegetable was never squared off first, so the pieces vary: the small ones are mush by the time the large ones are cooked, and the dish has two textures where it wanted one.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
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