Recipes from last night

The stuffed eggplant recipe is called Imam Bayildi, which translates Swooning Imam. The story is that when the imam came home from the mosque his wife had whipped up a dish for lunch. On tasting it, he fainted. I think his head exploded.

I had to alter the recipe from Sultan's Kitchen a bit because I couldn't find any Italian Eggplants (they are smaller) or Italian green peppers (long and skinny and mild). The recipe makes enough to eat as a side for 3 or 4 people.

Stuffed Eggplant

1 medium eggplant
1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced into rings
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tomato, chopped
about 1/4 cup Italian (flat leaf) parsley, or regular parsley, chopped
1/2 t sugar
salt and freshly ground black peper
1 long green chili that is mild like an Anaheim or 1/2 of a regular green pepper cut into long strips

Heat oven to 350 degrees
Peel off half the eggplant skin on the eggplant in alternating lengthwise strips. It should look striped. Make a deep slit in the eggplant but not all the way through. Sprinkle the eggplant inside and out with salt and let soak in clod water for 20 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a skillet. Add onions, garlic, tomatoes, parsley and sugar. Season with salt and pepper. Add a little cold water and stir. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for about 12 minutes. The onions need to be soft. Let it cool.

Rinse off the eggplant. Heat olive oil and fry the eggplant until its lightly browned on both sides. Put the eggplant into a baking dish open side up. Saute the green pepper. Stuff the eggplant with the onion mixture and lay the eggplant on top. Drizzle it with a little olive oil and pour about 1/4 cup water into the pan. Cover with tin foil and bake 40 minutes.

The next recipe is called Yogurtlu Kebap, which translates Kofta Kebabs with tomato sauce and Yogurt-garlic sauce. Apparently the guy who wrote Sultan's Kitchen
has a restaraunt called Sultan's Kitchen. He says that this is the most popular dish at the restaraunt. I believe it. I altered the recipe a little bit so that I could use ingredients that are available where I live.

Kofta Kebabs with Tomato Sauce and Yogurt-Garlic Sauce

2 slices bread
1 pound ground lamb or ground beef (use ground lamb)
about 1/4 cup of yellow onion, grated
2 cloves garlic
1 egg
1 T paprika
1 T ground cumin
1/4 c finely chopped Italian parsley or regular parsley
salt and fresh black pepper

Comine the above in a bowl and refrigerate until you are ready to throw the kebobs on the grill.

To make the tomato sauce, I used 4 roma tomatos from my garden. Drop them into boiling water for a minute and then drop into cold water. Remove skins. Heat some olive oil in a sauce pan. Add the tomatos, cover and cook for a few minutes. Mash them up well with a potato masher but leave a few chunks. Add salt and pepper to taste.

The butter sauce to drizzle over the top of everything is made by taking 1/2 stick butter, melting it and adding 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon parsley and about 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper.

Yogurt-Garlic sauce is made by combining 1 cup plain yogurt with 1 cup minced garlic. Add a little salt to taste, cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes or so.

To make the kebabs you will need these special kebab skewers. They are flat and about 1 inch wide. This prevents the ground meat from slipping off the skewer. You can get them at some specialty food stores or you can try to find them online using google. You pack the meat onto the skewers and the kebobs will be flat and a little bit wider than the skewer. Grill the meat and a few long green peppers that have been seeded. I used Anaheim chilis. I also took an onion and cut it into quarters and cooked that too.

To assemble the plates, take a pita and cut it into strips and lay it on the plate. Put the meat, a couple pieces of grilled onion and a green pepper and put it on top of the pita. Then put a little of the tomato sauce over it and then a little of the yogurt sauce in splashes. Finally splash some of the butter sauce over and sprinkle the whole dish with a little finely chopped parsley.