This beautiful curry comes from the ridiculously romantic Lake Palace in Udaipur and is a thick, sweet and sour mess of diced, roast eggplant, cooked with a reduced tomato sauce with ginger, garlic, turmeric, coriander, fennel and nigella seeds and a hint of cayenne pepper.  It's completely addictive and almost guaranteed to turn around non-eggplant-eaters. 

Eggplant, ginger, garlic, rice bran oil, salt, fennel seeds, nigella seeds, tomatoes, coriander, turmeric, cayenne pepper.

• Individual:Serves one adult.
• Small:Serves two adults.
• Large:Serves 4-5 adults.
• Extra Large:Serves 6 adults.

This will accompany the chicken and 100 almonds, tarka dahl, or any curry nicely, or could form the basis of a vegetarian dinner with steamed rice, naan bread and raita.

It's also great cold the next day - try it in a thick-cut ham sandwich or alongside cheese as a sort of relish.