Happy Monday! Just like every week, I’m starting mine with a recipe from the Thug Kitchen 101 cookbook. Today’s recipe is one that I did not think I would ever make because I do not typically like eggplant. And it’s funny too, because the little blurb above the recipe even calls out people who claim to not like eggplant. But I decided to give it a chance this time.

The recipe says to use small eggplants and in the picture, it looks like they used Japanese eggplant, so that’s what I decided to use. This was a very simple dish with few ingredients.

So essentially you just toss the eggplant with oil, curry powder (a lot of it) and salt, and then bake it in a decently hot oven. Once tender, you sprinkle some lime juice and cilantro on top. That’s it.

I do like the flavour of curry so I was hoping it would be enough to hide the flavour of the eggplant. To my surprise, it actually tasted good. I think the key was using the Japanese eggplant – their flavour is milder and there are fewer seeds. The curry worked really well with it and I liked the fresh cilantro and lime juice at the end. Those really brightened up the eggplant.

It still had the slight ‘tingly’ feeling that I’ve gotten from eggplant before, but I must say it wasn’t horrible. I mean, will I be going out and making more eggplant dishes anytime soon – probably not – but at least I gave this one a try!