GUTTI VANKAYA KOORA

Method

• Wash brinjals and keep aside. Take a bowl of water and add little salt to it and mix. Cut brinjals when exposed to air becomes black and get a bitter taste. To avoid this we place the cut brinjals in salted water till use. Now take a brinjal and remove the stem. Slit length wise to 3/4th height.
• Now turn the brinjal and make a slit to 3/4th height in the opposite direction to the first slit you have made.
• Now you can see that there are 2 slits on the two sides with the brinjal intact.Similarly slit all the brinjals and dip them in the salt water and keep aside. Take soya granules in a bowl and add water to soak them.
• Clean and chop the coriander. Similarly chop finely the onion. Now you can see that the soya granules have absorbed water and have swollen a bit.So remove water from the soya granules by pressing.
• By doing this we are softening the soya granules so that they get mixed nicely when we make the paste.

Now let us prepare the stuffing. Take a mixie jar and add ginger, green chilies, chopped onions, chopped coriander, pressed soya granules, salt, turmeric powder and cumin seeds. Grind this to a paste.

• Do not add water while grinding. The paste will be a coarse paste. Take this into a bowl and keep aside.
• Heat a pan and add oil to it. The oil should be really hot. Drain the brinjals from salt water to a perforated bowl to drain excess water.Take a dry cloth and pat them dry. When the oil is hot add the brinjals to the hot oil and fry for 30 Seconds.We have to fry them for just 30 seconds only. By doing this we are ensuring that each brinjal is cooked evenly.
• Due to heat of the oil the brinjals get cooked up to 90%. The remaining gets cooked when we cook in microwave.Because we are removing it after just 30 seconds, the brinjals will not absorb any oil. Keep them aside to cool a bit.Now stuff the brinjals with the prepared paste.Arrange them in a microwave safe bowl. Do not put the brinjals one above the other. You can cook the remaining brinjals in a second batch.
• So arrange the brinjals in a flat microwave safe dish side by side. There is no need to add any oil as we have already fried them in oil.If required spray some water on these brinjals. Now cover the bowl with a cling film.
• Take a knife or a scissor and prick on the cling film at two three places to allow steam to escape while cooking.Now put this bowl in microwave.Cook the brinjals on high power for 5 minutes, then on low power for 5 more minutes.
• Allow standing time of 5 minutes and take them out.Tasty Gutti Vankayalu will be ready. Serve them hot.