Sutta kathirikkai thogayal prepared by roasting the brinjal in fire and grinding it with spices to go well with rice. Step by step pictures recipe.

Sutta kathirikai, the name itself is really fascinating when I know about recipes with brinjal roasted in direct flame.
I have already posted couple of recipes, sutta kathirikai chutney and baingan bharta using this technique of fire roasting brinjal.
Loved both in its own ways. I know sutta kathrikai thogayal earlier before trying chutney. But never tried it.
I picked this big purple brinjal at Fairprice during my weekly groceries purchase.
But had no idea to make brinjal thogayal 😆😁. Somehow sudden thought to prepare sutta kathirikai thogayal for rice and make recipe post in my blog too. Quick and easy recipe for a Monday post😎.
Top tips
Before we jump into the recipe, here are some useful tips to note.
- Roasting brinjal properly is very important. If you do it in high flame, you will end up in charring the outer and un-cooked middle part. This will give you bitter taste. So ensure to roast in medium flame patiently to do it evenly.
- To avoid strong smokey smell, wash the brinjal after peeling. This also helps get rid of tiny pieces that is stuck on the surface which if ground along will give strong smell as well as bitter taste.
- Make sure to balance the spice, tanginess and salt as it is also important to avoid bitter taste.
Step by step photos
- Wash and pat dry the brinjal completely firstly.
- Secondly, brush the brinjal with oil all over the surface. I cut off the green part (pavadai/ stalk side). After that, insert a metal skewer through it.
3. Place over medium flame, directly over the burners. You can use mesh too.
Keep roasting all the sides, turning the brinjal every 1 minute.
4. Once all the sides are roasted and inside of the brinjal is cooked, remove from fire.
The skewer inserted will loosen as it gets cooked inside, so you will know inside of the kathirikkai is cooked.
Cool down and peel off the charred skin. If you have roasted correctly, it will come off easily.
If it is stuck, hard to peel off, it's not cooked yet.
Once all the skin has been peeled off, wash it so as to remove the small pieces of skin stuck to the kathirikkai .
5. Mash the kathirikkai roughly with your hands, keep aside.
In a kadai, heat oil. Roast red chilli, urad dal and asafoetida until urad dal is golden in colour.
6. Place all the ingredients in a blender/ mixie along with tamarind, jaggery and salt.
If you want you can saute tamarind towards end along roasted items, to soften it.
Grind smoothly without adding any water.
You can choose to grind all ingredients except kathirikkai first and lastly add kathirikkai and give it a run for a different texture.
Serve sutta kathirikkai thogayal with hot steamed rice, sesame oil or ghee.
Related links
Recipe card
Sutta kathirikkai thogayal recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Brinjal big variety
- 10 Red chilli
- 1 teaspoon Tamarind packed
- 1 tablespoon Urad dal
- ¼ teaspoon Asafoetida
- ½ teaspoon Jaggery
- Salt
- 2 teaspoon Oil
Instructions
- Wash and pat dry the brinjal completely firstly.
- Secondly, brush the brinjal with oil all over the surface. I cut off the green part (pavadai/ stalk side).
- After that, insert a metal skewer through it.
- Place over medium flame, directly over the burners. You can use mesh too.
- Keep roasting all the sides, turning the brinjal every 1 minute.
- Once all the sides are roasted and inside of the brinjal is cooked, remove from fire.
- The skewer inserted will loosen as it gets cooked inside, so you will know inside of the brinjal is cooked.
- Cool down and peel off the charred skin. If you have roasted correctly, it will come off easily.
- If it is stuck, hard to peel off, it's not cooked yet.
- Once all the skin has been peeled off, wash it so as to remove the small pieces of skin stuck to the brinjal.
- Mash the brinjal roughly with your hands, keep aside.
- In a kadai, heat oil. Roast red chilli, urad dal and asafoetida until urad dal is golden in colour.
- Finally, place all the ingredients in a blender/ mixie along with tamarind, jaggery and salt.
- If you want you can saute tamarind towards end along roasted items, to soften it.
- Grind smoothly without adding any water.
- You can choose to grind all ingredients except brinjal first and lastly add brinjal and give it a run for a different texture.
Notes
- Make sure to turn the brinjal so that top, bottom, all the sides gets roasted and cooked.
- You can microwave brinjal by placing as such inside and microwave high for few minutes and skip roasting in fire. Poke at couple of places before microwaving. If the brinjal is not cooked properly, it will be bitter.
- My chilli is mildly spiced. So adjust the number as per your chilli and spice level you prefer.
Leave a Reply