Baigan Bharta

Baigan means eggplant in Hindi, and the vegetable forms the main component of this lightly spiced Indian dish. Charring the eggplant (using the same technique as in the Eggplant and Lemon Risotto recipe) gives it a fleshy,creamy texture and endows this dish with a lovely smoky flavour. I’m not generally a huge fan of peas, but in the interests of staying true to the traditional version of the recipe I’ve succumbed and added them. Despite my general bias against them, the peas work well here and contrast nicely against the beige backdrop of the eggplant.

This is a delicious, light dish that is best served hot with roti for a wonderful lunch or dinner.

Eggplant and Lemon Risotto

There have been two wonderful additions to my life in the past week, the incredible vegetarian cookbook Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi (which this recipe was sourced from) and my new MacBook Pro (which I’m currently writing on) . I’m sure that both will provide me with plenty of inspiration for many posts in the future.

I found Plenty on Heidi Swanson’s website 101 cookbooks and I knew immediately that I had to have it. Ottolenghi is a renowned chef and owner of Ottolenghi restaurant in London, and though he is not a vegetarian himself, he understands how to inject vegetables with spices to produce wonderfully flavoured and tantalising dishes. The photography in the cookbook is also vibrant and motivates you to try the recipes out for yourself. Some recipes from this book are currently being reproduced in his food section The New Vegetarian in the Guardian paper, and are well worth checking out online.

Scrumptious Vegetable Lasagne

There is nothing more disappointing than biting into a vegetarian lasagne that is lacking in flavour, texture and most importantly vegetables. So this is my remedy to the sea of mediocrity…a rich, vibrant lasagne whose cheesy goodness will have you back for seconds in no time . As with other recipes, I’ve mixed and matched sauces from two recipe books; Food of the World: Italy and What’s Cooking: Vegetarian. The bechamel sauce recipe seemed more authentic in Food of the World, while the main vegetable sauce recipe in What’s Cooking had that bit of oomph that I wanted, so I went with having the best of both worlds.

This is a great antidote to the cold weather, so go on and share the lasagne love this winter.