Gutti Vankaya Kura

This is one of the most delicious Andhra dish loved by many people. I, along with a friend of mine, Bhanu, tried this dish at home for the first time. We completely loved the output.

The dish takes about an hour. The preparation time involved is more than the actual cooking time. So be prepared for the preparation time... :)
Here we go.
Ingredients: 
Brinjal - If they are small in size, take about 10-12 in number, if they are long, then take about 5-6 in number
Chana dal - 3 tb sp
Urad dal - 3 tb sp
Mustard seeds - 1 tb sp
Cumin - 1 tb sp
Red chillies 5-6 
Methi - 1/4 tb sp
Dhaniya - 1 tb sp
Pepper seeds - 1/4th tb sp (optional)
turmeric powder
curry leaves
Tamarind - about 75 gms
bunch of coriander
green chliies 3-4 (depends on how hot you eat)
Ginger - small piece
oil (a lot of oil is required, so try forget the diet that you follow regularly for today)
Preparation of stuffing mixture

• Take a pan, heat oil (4-5 table spoons). Add chana dal, once they are 50% fried (or once they start changing the color), add urad dal, leave for a min, then add mustard seeds, Dhaniya, Methi, red chillies,jeera, pepper seeds. Fry them until they become brown. 
• Add curry leaves and tamarind. Leave for couple of mins and switch off the flame. 
• Now drain the excess oil and keep the mixture to cool.
• Make the above mixture to a coarse powder, add salt required.

Preparation of coriander paste
Take a big bunch of coriander leaves, Green chllies, a small piece of ginger (If you eat garlic, you can add ginger garlic paste). Make it paste and keep it a side. This can be used as gravy. Again, this is optional.
Procedure

• Cut the Brinjal by two side ways, till the edge keeping the base intact. 
• Now, we can fry these brinjals in hot oil for 30 secs and take out. The outside texture becomes soft with this. You can skip this and keep them in microwave for 2-3 mins after stuffing.
• Now take each brinjal, open from cut end and neatly stuff the powder that we prepared above.
• Keep these in a bowl and cook them in microwave for about 3 mins. This is to reduce the cooking time and deep fry of brinjals.
• Now heat the oil in wide open pan and add the coriander paste and the 3-4 table spoons of stuffing powder, leave it for 4-5 mins on medium flame. add salt if required.
• Then spread the stuffed brinjal pieces one by one in the pan, and close it with lid. 
• Cook them for about 20-25 mins. For every 5 mins, turn the pieces and close the pan with lid, so that each side of the brinjal is cooked properly. Keep adding oil if you see that the oil gets absorbed completely. 
• Once they become soft then switch off flame and add the coriander leaves on the top. 

The delicious curry is ready to eat. 


Four of us completed about 20 pieces of Brinjal, probably because we prepared ourselves or probably it was indeed good...Thank you Bhanu...Lets try another next week...


Happy experimenting...try and let me know if this comes out well...


Until next recipe...

Rama Poduri