Recipe: Roasted aubergine chatini with peanuts and fritters of cari chilli

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Tantalise your tastebuds with this delicious aubergine chutney served with lightly battered chillies and onion rings.

Serves 4
Preparation time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 20 minutes

For the eggplant chatini:

• 500g aubergines
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion
• 5 spring onions
• 1 small fresh red chilli
• 3 sprigs coriander
• 150g toasted peanuts
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and freshly ground pepper

For the batter:

• 75g flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• vegetable oil for deep frying
• salt

For the coriander salad:

• 1 bunch coriander
• 3 small preserved limes (salt cured)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• salt and pepper

Finishing touch:

• 6 cari chillies
• 12 onion slices

1. Preheat oven to 220ºC.
2. Wash the aubergines, season them with salt and pepper, wrap them in aluminium foil, adding 2 tbsp olive oil. Bake for 15 minutes.
3. Let cool, cut in 2 lengthwise and spoon out the flesh. Mash it with a fork and set aside.
4. Peel and chop the onion. Chop the onion greens, chilli and coriander separately. Chop the peanuts with a knife.
5. Mix the aubergine pulp with remaining olive oil, lemon juice, chopped onion, spring onions, coriander, chilli and peanuts. Add a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper.
6. Make the coriander salad: wash the coriander, strip the leaves off the stalks. Halve the preserved limes, remove seeds and cut the flesh into julienne sticks. Toast the fennel seeds in a dry pan for 5 minutes on low heat. Mix all the ingredients and correct seasoning.
7. Halve the cari chillies lengthwise, remove the seeds and blanch them in boiling salted water for 1 minute. Cool in iced water. Repeat once.
8. Make the batter: separate the eggs. Mix the flour with 12.5cl water, the egg yolks, the olive oil and some salt.
9. Heat the oil for frying to 180ºC.
10. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the previous mixture shortly before frying the vegetables. Season the vegetables with salt and dip each one of them (half a chilli and onion slice) in the batter, and fry them until golden (about 5 minutes). Drain on absorbent paper.
10. Drop some aubergine and peanut chatini in a circle in the middle of each plate. Place the vegetable fritters around the chatini and the coriander salad in the centre.

Every Friday we publish a delicious recipe from the kitchens of Constance Hotels.