Growing up I always heard my khaloo (uncle on mother’s side) refer tobaigun as bay guun (literally meaning that eggplant is not praiseworthy), but I have just the opposite opinion!

A delicious, spongy delight that can be cooked in a variety of ways and is always great on the palate; eggplant fritters (pakora), alloo baigan, baigan ka bhurta, baigan kay paratha, baigan ka achar, badam jaan and the king of all; the Hyderabadi bhagaray baigan.

The importance of the brinjal cannot be insisted upon enough in sub continental cuisine, and in the state of Hyderabad, the purple vegetable has an almost spiritual significance, maybe as esteemed as in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines.

Hence the following quote from William Dalrymple’s White Mughuls, a fantastic rendition of times in 18th century Hyderabad aptly relays the significance of the purple vegetable in Hyderabad, Deccan.

A flourishing vegetable garden was another persistent goal of James’s: of one friend in Calcutta he asked for seeds of peas, French beans, lettuce, endive and celery, `to which may be added a little choice cabbage and cauliflower seed’. In return for these, all he could offer were seeds of aubergines, which appears to have been very much the Hyderabadi vegetable of choice in the late eighteenth century.

My research has led me to understand that the cuisine of Hyderabad has a definite lean to southern cooking. Their creative methods of cooking vegetables, baisan (gram flour), coconut milk, imli (tamarind) and peanuts amongst others, blends into a flavour that is uniquely and deliciously Hyderabadi.