Three Trouble-makers

These three staples of Indian lunch places consistently give me trouble. Potatoes and Cauliflower, Chana Dal (yellow lentils) and Baingan Bharta (eggplant). The eggplant is getting better, good even, but the trick is to not follow recipe books for this one. You have to cook the eggplant one way or another before you start messing around with it. I have read lots of recipes that say something like "add water, cover and steam for 5-8 minutes." I don't know what kind of magical pots these people are using, but for me this yields a pot of raw eggplant.

Chana is the most puzzling to me. Certain sources have told me that I need to use a pressure cooker to do this dish right. I guess that's possible, but it doesn't seem to be sufficient explanation for how far short I fall of the mark. The workaround for now is to put them in a tomatoey sauce. The texture issues that I normally have with chana seem to resolve a little bit in the tomato base.

I think the Potatoes and Cauliflower would also benefit from parboiling or otherwise pre-cooking, and somehow more oil needs to get in there. I don't recall seeing anything about pre-cooking the vegetables ever, but it would clearly be a good idea.