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Old September 25, 2011   #32
OneDahlia
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: 7a NO. VA.
Posts: 202
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We use eggplant a lot, so here are a few eggplant ideas:

* Marinate briefly in oil, vinegar, salt, garlic, onion and basil, then grill.

* Salt it and let it sit for 1/2 hour to let it "sweat," or soak in saltwater for 1/2 hour, then pat dry, fry, and dredge through a mix of vinegar, minced garlic and salt. Eat with pita bread.

* Saute onion and garlic in oil, then add eggplant chunks and saute a little more, then add sliced tomatoes, sprinkle it all with salt and black and/or red pepper, cover and cook until eggplant is soft. Serve over rice or eat with pita bread. There are endless variations on this -- you can add other vegetables like potato, bell peppers, and squash. Probably okra would be good too. Just add the vegetables in the order of how long it takes them to cook. Usually eggplant goes first. You can also make this with meat -- put the meat in before the vegetables.

* Eggplant salad. Grill or bake the eggplant until it's soft. Let cool, then chop and put in a bowl. Chop up onion and tomato and add to the eggplant. Add olive oil, vinegar, salt and a little cayenne pepper. Serve as a dip with bread.

* This is a real delicacy -- it's a version of the imam bayildi mentioned earlier, a Turkish version. (Imam bayildi means "the imam fainted" -- possibly because the dish was so good.) Find a thin Asian style eggplant or two, a zucchini or two of about the same size, and some tomatoes of about the same diameter. Slice them all paper thin, or as thin as you possibly can (the tomato will have to be thicker than the others). Layer them around the edge of a round dish, spiraling them in to the center and overlapping the layers. (Kind of like you took a deck of cards and pushed it till you see the edges of all the cards). Drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and possibly black and red/or pepper. Bake on very low temperature until tender. Eat with rice or bread.

* This dish uses small eggplants. It's a bit complex (and uses lots of oil) but it's well worth the effort and calories.
-Wash some small eggplants (maybe 8 or so, depending on their size), peel strips off them and cut one slit in each from near the top to near the bottom, without cutting all the way through to the other side. (You can leave the tops on -- makes them easier to fry). Salt the inside and outside to sweat so it doesn't absorb too much oil. Rinse them to get rid of excess salt, pat dry, and fry in oil, turning to brown all sides, until more or less softened.
-Slice an onion into 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices. Saute them in olive oil till they start to get soft and remove them to a plate. Chop 1-2 large tomatoes, cook those in some oil until they start to soften too, and remove them to plate with onions.
-Then saute chopped onion (maybe 1/2 large onion) and minced garlic (a clove or two) till softened. Add 1 lb. ground beef, plus a tbsp. of tomato paste, 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. allspice and a little black and and red pepper, and saute more until meat is cooked.
-Spoon meat mixture into the slit in the eggplants to stuff the eggplants as full as you can without splitting them (they'll look kind of like bowls with meat in them), and place them in a baking dish. Put some of the sauteed onion slices and chopped tomato on top of each. Bake at 350 until the eggplants are completely soft.
- Serve with rice.

(Note: Turkish cuisine uses ground cayenne pepper in place of black pepper -- just a sprinkle to kick up the flavors but not make it spicy. You can leave it out, or use black pepper.)

Last edited by OneDahlia; September 25, 2011 at 08:29 PM.
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