Eggplant Khichadi without Rice

This recipe is as old as it gets, basically passed down from generation to generation. All I have done is replaced rice with cracked whole wheat. Cracked whole wheat is nothing but cracked wheat berries. In general you get those in three levels of granularity specified in number. I chose #2, i.e. medium, basically each wheat berry into 3-4 pieces. So without further delay, here is the recipe

Ingredients:
1. Eggplant - 1 Medium size
2. White Onion - 1 Medium size
3. Red Bell Pepper - 1 Medium size
4. Red Potato - 1 Medium size
5. Jalapeno - 1
6. Carrot - 1
7. French Beans - handful
8. Green Peas - 1/2 Cup
9. Extra Virgin Olive Oil - 1 TBSP
10. Muster Seeds - 1 TSP
11. Cumin Seeds - 1 TSP
12. Turmeric Powder - 1 TSP
13. Asafetida - 1 Pinch
14. Cracked Whole Wheat - 1 Cup
15. Garlic - 2/3 Cloves
16. Ginger - 1 Inch
17. Salt - 2 TSP
18. Black pepper - 4/5

Method:

1. Start Instant Pot on Saute mode at 7 min setting, heat it on high heat. Add oil, once hot, add cumin seeds, followed by muster seeds and whole black peppers. Once those start to crackle, add turmeric powder and asafetida. Give it a quick mix, and add chopped jalapeno. If not instant pot, follow all the steps by using pressure cooker.

2. In a min, add chopped white onion. Instead of white onion, you can use yellow onion. Once mixed, let it cook for 2-3 min.

3. Add chopped red  potato, about an cetimeter cube size. Red potato cooks faster than yellow potato. If you are using yellow potato, give it an extra min for cooking. Once mixed, let it cook for another 3-4 min.

4. Now add in finely chopper garlic and ginger. Once mixed, give a min or so to cook. Sorry for steamy picture.

5. Now add all remaining veggies, red bell pepper, carrot, french beans, green peas and eggplant. You could use green bell pepper, it gives a bit of bitter taste though. I am using frozen mix vegetables for carrot, french beans and green peas. An eggplant is softer than rest of the veggies, so keep the pieces a bit bigger than cube size. Give a good mix and let it cook for a couple of min.

6. Add cracked whole wheat and salt. Mix it well. You do not have to roast cracked whole wheat but let it cook for 2-3 min.

7. Add 2 cups of water. Please note, all mixture do not need to be covered with water, it needs to be enough so everything cooks well.

8. For instant pot, now close the lid and change setting from saute to pressure cooker for 5 min on high pressure. If using regular pressure, close the lid and let it cook for 1 whistle. Either way, once cooked, let everything cool down - 20 min or so and hot khichadi is ready. During winter pair it with kadhi and in summer, pair it with butter milk, lassi, chaa, which is what I did.