Sri Lankan eggplant pickle (Eggplant moju)

I recently took a trip with Peter Kuruvita to the southern part of the island. At one of your stops, we demonstrated how to make a moju. It is a simple recipe and belongs to the family of Sri Lankan achacharus and sambols.

A moju is typically Sri Lankan, but the word originated from Malay, "mochua", meaning to pickle or preserve. It is a typical dish made with practically anything —vegetables, fish, meat, or sometimes fruit —and characterised by a spicy, sour, and sweet flavour. This dish was created to help preserve food for long periods of time and is culturally very important.

After the cooking session, we sat down for lunch, a packed banana leaf lunch. Today's lunch was called Kehel Kole Bhat and included rice with samba, a batter-fried boiled egg, chicken curry, and a vegetable. The eggplant moju was added as we're spicy salt-cured chillies fried crisp. The whole package is wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. This is a complete meal.

This is a fantastic cookbook, so much so that I rarely now go to the other Sri Lankan cookbooks on my shelf. It is a gorgeous cookbook, from which I have cooked at least half the recipes, every one spectacular. I believe what makes this book special is the attention to detail, including recipes for every spice blend.

For more recipes from this cookbook, click here.

Ingredients:

About 500-600 grams of eggplants

2-6 fresh red chillies, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

2 onions, sliced

1 tablespoon turmeric

Vegetable oil for deep frying

For the temper:

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

15 curry leaves

1 teaspoon ginger, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup coconut or palm vinegar

Salt, to taste

If using the long, thin Japanese eggplants, cut them into long, thin strips about 1 1/2 inches long. If using a globe eggplant, cut it into 1-inch cubes. Toss with the turmeric. Allow to sit for 10 minutes.

Heat the oil until it is smoking. Add about 1/3 of the eggplant into the frying oil. Do not add it all at once; as I learned, small batches allow the eggplant to crisp without absorbing too much oil. Adding the whole batch cools the oil, and the eggplant tends to absorb more oil. Fry on a high flame until well caramelised. Remove and drain on paper towels. Repeat with the other two batches.

Fry the onions the same way until caramelised and well browned.

Heat the oil for the temper, preferably in an earthen pot, called a "hetti". When smoking, add the mustard seeds; they will pop in 10 seconds. Follow with the cumin seeds, curry leaves, ginger and garlic in quick succession. Cook for 1 minute until the spices have cooked through and the ginger no longer smells raw.

Add the sugar, vinegar, and salt, and cook, making sure the sugar is completely melted.

Toss in the fried onions and eggplant and mix well—taste for salt, tartness and spice. The moju should be bold and well-balanced.

Serve at room temperature. The moju will keep in the fridge for a week or more, but it gets eaten way before that.