I first had this curry at one of my dearest friends home 12 years ago. I loved it!

This recipe does require quite a bit of prep time, but its worth the effort! The husband won’t touch it, to him this is “girly food”, kinda in the same category as Quiche :).  This hasn’t been a problem since mirchon ka salan has become one of my favorite foods!

I got this recipe from Zaiqa.net. I tweaked it a bit keeping in mind things I had on hand:

Ingredients:

Green chillies – approximately 12-14

For masala

Sesame Seeds – 1/2 cup

Cashews or peanuts– 1/2 cup

Dry desiccated Coconut – 3/4 cup

Whole garam masala – 1 tablespoon

For gravy:

Coconut oil – 1/4 cup

Onions – 3, chopped

Ginger & Garlic paste– 2 tsp

Salt – 1 tbsp

Turmeric/haldi – 1/2 tsp

Cumin – 1 tsp

Cilantro – 3 tbsp, finely chopped

Tamarind paste – 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Slit the green chillies and take out the seeds (maybe a good idea to use gloves).  Keep aside.
2. Cover a cookie sheet with foil. Place the desiccated coconut, sesame seeds, nuts, garam masala in a thin layer on a cookie sheet. It wont take long for the coconut, nuts and seed to brown, so please keep checking every minute or before. Once there is an aroma from them, remove from the broiler and let cool. Grind them all in a food processor to a smooth paste and keep aside.

Gravy:

Heat a large sauce pan at medium high heat, add 1/8 cup of coconut oil. Once the oil is warm, add the chopped onions. Let the onions sweat and keep stirring them until they are just starting to brown up in color. Once the onions are soft and lightly browned in color,  remove from heat and keep aside. Once the dry roasted onions are cool, puree them in a grinder until smooth. Keep aside.
4. Pour remaining oil in the saucepan and once hot add the green chillies. Cover with lid. Stir fry them till blisters form on the skins.

5. Fry the onion and ginger garlic paste in the leftover oil from the chillies. Add the desiccated coconut, sesame seed and nut paste and stir fry it for 2-5 minutes or until you see that the mixture comes together and starts leaving oil. Now add 1 teaspoon of the cumin powder and the turmeric powder. Mix well and keep stir frying it for a further 2 minutes on medium low heat. Now add the chopped cilantro and mix well.

6. Next, pour in 3 cups warm water and the tamarind paste. Mix well. Finally add the fried green chillies . Cover with a lid and let cook on simmer for 15 minutes while stirring frequently, until all the oil has separated.

It does have a lot of steps, but is a lovely dish. You can use the same curry with eggplant or fish and chicken.