Eggplant Stew with Rice (Patlıcanlı Cive)

I'm still posting eggplant recipes, and I still have more, because eggplants and zucchinis are the main things we've been getting from farmers market every week for over a month now. And I took the opportunity to show how Turks are crazy about eggplant! Cive is a great summer dish from the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, Antalya. Cive is good warm or cold, with yogurt or bread. The main point is to make it with green tomatoes that give cive the desired sour taste.


























1 lb eggplant, peeled partially leaving lengthwise stripes and diced
2 medium onions, cut in thin half moons
10-12 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
3 green chilies, chopped
3 tomatoes (preferably green tomatoes for a sour taste), peeled and petite diced
3 tbsp rice
1/4 cup olive
1 tsp black pepper
salt
2 or 3 tbsp chopped fresh basil or mint OR t tbsp dry mint or basil



























-Heat oil in a pot. Add onion and garlic. Stir for 3-4 minutes.
-Add chopped chilies. Stir for a couple of minutes.
-Add tomato, eggplant, black pepper, salt. Stir one and do not stir again; otherwise eggplant will get mushy.
-Cover and cook on low-medium until vegetables will get juicy in the pot. Stir in rice nice and polite.
-Cover and cook on low for 30-40 minutes.
-Before you serve, sprinkle chopped basil or mint.

As much as the green tomatoes, fresh basil is what makes this eggplant dish distinctive and special. And for the sake of fresh basil, this is my contribution for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, which was hosted by Kalyn and is hosted this week by Myriam of Once Upon a Tart.

Read More

Eggplant and Lentil Stew with Pomegranate Molasses (Mualle)

Here's another delicious certified Turkish eggplant recipe. I had mualle first in İstanbul at Çiya Restaurant. The owner and chef of Çiya, Musa Dağdeviren, is not only a great chef but also a passionate researcher of forgotten Anatolian recipes. He has traveled all around Anatolia and collected almost 4 thousand local recipes. That's why Çiya's menu changes daily. One of those 4 thousand recipes, Mualle, is a summer stew from Antakya. Mualle that I had at Çiya was so good that I got very excited when I found Dağdeviren's recipe in Food & Wine. Try this recipe before the last eggplants of the season start to disappear from farmers markets.

























3-4 long narrow eggplants, peeled in lengthwise stripes
1/2 cup green lentils
1 medium onion, chopped
4-5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3 banana peppers or any long thin green chilies, seeded and chopped
2 tomatoes, diced
2 tbsp fresh mint, chopped or 2 tbsp dry mint
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tbsp tomato paste
2/3 cup olive oil
3 tbsp pomegranate molasses (you can find pm easily at Middle Eastern markets)
salt
























-Peel the eggplant partially and leave lengthwise stripes of skin. Cut them into 4 lengthwise. Chop every piece crosswise into 3. Place them on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. Let them stand for an hour.
-Bring green lentils to a boil with 2 cups of water. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until lentils are soft.
-In a bowl mix tomatoes, green chilies, onion, garlic, mint, salt, crushed peppers, and tomato paste.
-Coat a small cast-iron casserole with 1-2 tbsp of olive oil. Put 1/2 cup of veggie mix on bottom. Cover with half of the eggplant, then half of the lentils, and half of the remaining veggie mix. Top first with remaining eggplant, then with lentils, and then with veggie mix.
-Pour olive oil around the side. Sprinkle pomegranate molasses.
-Bring the stew to a boil. Then cover and turn it down to low and simmer for 1-1 1/2 hours.

Mualle is good with rice and yogurt.

Read More

Stuffed Eggplants (Karnıyarık)

Another "certified Turkish" recipe from my mom: karnıyarık which literally translates as "split belly." Karnıyarık is widely made and dearly loved almost in every part of Turkey. But by going over the ingredients and cooking method, I believe it's from southeastern and eastern Mediterranean regions of Turkey. I must warn you; this is not a light dish, but it is absolutely fantastic and if you haven't had karnıyarık before, it will change your ideas on eggplant dishes. Enough said to advertise eggplant.

There are a couple things to be careful about when you're cooking with eggplants. Buy eggplants right before you cook and pick the firmer ones; eggplants tend to get soft in the refrigerator. And for this dish, do not use huge American eggplants. Try to find cute little ones or Asian eggplants.

1 lb eggplant, peeled in stripes lengthwise
1/2 ground meat
2 onions, cubed
1/2 bunch parsley, finely choppped
1 tomato, petite diced (for the stuffing)
1 tomato, sliced in half moons (for the top)
green banana peppers, as many as eggplants
ground pepper
salt
2 tbs olive oil
frying oil
1 cup hot water

-Peel eggplants leaving lengthwise stripes and then put them in salty water for 10 minutes. Dry them well and fry them as a whole in a deep pot with canola or corn or vegetable oil, whichever you're comfortable with. (Make sure oil is really hot before you place eggplants, otherwise eggplants will soak tons of oil)
-Once they're fried, first soak the excessive oil by resting them on a paper towel, and then place eggplants on an oven dish.
-In a deep frying pan, heat olive oil. Add onions and stir for 3-4 minutes.
-Add ground meat. Cook until ground meat soaks all the juice it lets out.
-Add diced tomato. Stir until cooked. Turn it off.
-Add chopped parsley, salt, and pepper. Mix well.
-With the help of two spoons, slit eggplants into two. But leave the tops and bottoms attached.
-Stuff eggplants with ground meat mixture.
-Place a slice of half moon shaped tomato and a green pepper on top of each split belly eggplant.
-Pour 1 cup of hot water on top and bake them in preheated oven at 400F until green peppers are nicely baked.

Serve with rice and yogurt.

Another eggplant recipe with parsley for Weekend Herb Blogging which was founded by Kalyn and is hosted this week by Katie of Thyme for Cooking.

Read More

Thracian Roasted Eggplant Salad (Tunçilik)

Roasted eggplant salads are very common in Thrace, where I come from, during the summer. Thrace (Trakya in Turkish) is the northwestern corner or the European part of Turkey. Thrace is a historical and geographical region that spreads over Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The Turkish part is the Eastern Thrace. Eastern Thrace, in years, witnessed major waves of migration--like the two big ones after the Ottoman-Russian war and the Lausanne Treaty--which created the marvelous ethnic, cultural, and culinary mosaic of the region today.

My favorite jewel of this culinary mosaic, Tunçilik, is one of the many different versions of roasted eggplant salad or meze (=appetizer) that's made in the region. Tunçilik is a specialty of the southwestern part of Turkish Thrace around Tekirdağ.

for 6 people
4 eggplants
5-6 big red peppers or banana peppers
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
6-7 tbsp of vinegar
3-4 tbsp olive oil
salt
1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
There's nothing written in stone. You can use more or less of everything. Whatever you do, make sure you use all the ingredients. There's no such thing as Tunçilik without parsley, peppers, or tomatoes, or vinegar. Make it less vinegary or more oily or peppery, but have all the ingredients.


-Roast eggplants and peppers on a grill, or in oven at 450F. Roast tomatoes along with eggplants and peppers for 4-5 minutes.
-Let them cool first. Then peel eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes. And seed them.
-Chopped them all finely.
-In a bowl mix crushed garlic, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, and parsley.
-In a small bowl, mix vinegar, olive oil, and salt. Add this on vegetables.
-Mix well. Taste. If you think you can handle a little more garlic and vinegar, do not hesitate to add more.
-Tunçilik goes well with red meat or poultry, especially if they're grilled. And do not forget to soak the juice with fresh bread.

One of the readers of the blog, Tash, has made some wonderful suggestions to perfect this recipe (also see Tash' comment below). I'd like to share them with you:
- After removing the roasted eggplants from the hot ashes, they are cut length wise, salted and kept vertically in a colander for a few minutes to drain. This I am told drains the bitter taste out of eggplants and removes excess moisture for a more consistent texture in the mix. 
-Roasted tomatoes and peppers are not always peeled to add texture and smokier taste to the mix. Just brush off the ashes. 
-If available Tahini and little lemon juice with a little roasted garlic was sometimes added to the mix.
-I also noticed that lemon juice was omitted if the roasted tomatoes were in the mix. 
-Mixing in fresh kaymak (solidified heavy cream) to the basic mix was my favorite version.

Read More

Eggplant-Meatball Casserole (Fırında Köfteli Patlıcan)

This delicious eggplant and meatball recipe was highly inspired by another recipe I found at one of Turkey's most popular and successful food blogs: portakal ağacı. In her blog Hatice, tells that she got the recipe from an aunt (in Turkey you call all the elderly ladies "aunt X or Y" for respect regardless of your blood relation to them) and that it's called "Antep kebap" (Antep Kebabı). I liked the idea of having meatballs and eggplant--my favorite vegetable--but I didn't follow the recipe strictly. I think this is the good side of casserole dishes; they give you room for flexibility. In the end it turned out to be a light and tasty recipe.

I particularly like meatball casserole dishes, because (1) they are really easy to make and (2) in the end they are delicious. I usually make meatballs from 2 lb of ground lamb and beef. Later I freeze meatballs and use them whenever I need them. As you can imagine, when you have already made frozen meatballs, making any kind of meatball casserole dish takes almost no time.

























2-3 eggplants, peeled in stripes and cut in 1 inch rounds
2 tomatoes, sliced
1 or 1/2 banana pepper for each meatball
1 big onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
salt

for meatball (I used half of the meatballs from this batch for the recipe; the other half went straight to the freezer)
1 lb ground meat
1-2 slice of stale bread, processed in a food processor or grated
1 eggs
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp oregano leaves
1/2 tsp salt
1 big clove of garlic, minced
1 onion, grated or finely chopped
1/2 parsley, finely chopped
(the original recipe didn't ask for cumin, oregano leaves, onion, and garlic for the meatball part)

-Mix well all the ingredients for meatball in a bowl and make round , half inch thick meatballs.
-Peel the eggplants in stripes and cut them in rounds. Place the rounds in a casserole.
-Place one meatball on each eggplant round.
-Scatter chopped onion and garlic on meatballs.
-Underneath onion and garlic, you'll still see your small eggplant and meatball towers; put one slice of tomato and one or half banana pepper (or any pepper you want) on each eggplant+meatball tower.
-Salt to your taste and pour 1/4 cup of alive oil on top.
-Cover tight with aluminum foil and bake for an hour at a preheated oven at 450F. After an hour uncover, and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

I served eggplant and meatball casserole with bulgur pilaf and yogurt.

Read More

Spinach with Soft Wheat Berries (Buğdaylı Ispanak)

I usually cook spinach with white rice. I had bought a big bag of soft wheat berries for another recipe. They are tastier than bulgur, and softer and easier to chew than brown rice. I decided to use them with spinach for a great summer recipe.

























1 full cup of pearl onions, or 1 big onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
3 tomatoes, grated or 1 can diced tomato
1 cup cooked soft wheat berries
1 lb / almost 1/2 kilo spinach, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup vegetable stock or water (hot)
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp sugar
salt
black pepper (optional)
red pepper flakes (optional)

























-1/3 cup of soft wheat berries will make approximately 1 cup when they're cooked. Boil 1/3 cup soft wheat berries in 3-4 cups of water until berries are soft.
-Heat the oil in a broad pot. Stir onion and garlic until slightly brown.
-Pour in tomatoes and cook for 5-8 minutes.
-Stir in spinach, lemon juice, sugar, salt, pepper(s), and berries.
-Pour vegetable stock.
-Cover and cook on medium for 30-35 minutes.
-You serve it cold or hot. It goes well with fresh bread and yogurt.

Read More

Cold Soft Wheat Berry Soup (Soğuk Buğday Çorbası)

I'm back from Turkey with great memories and recipes. The first recipe is "cold soft wheat berry soup." Although this dish is called soup, it might be served as an appetizer or a side dish. However it's served, it's a great refreshing and healthy dish for hot and humid summer days. During most summer days, my mom keeps cooked soft wheat berries ready in the refrigerator (they are usually good for at least a week). The last week of July was unbearably humid generally in Turkey and especially in my hometown; so hot and humid that our favorite pass time activity was to sit motionless in front air conditioners. During those painful days, cold soft wheat berry soup and ice cold watermelons were the only two things we could have for lunch and both felt sooo good.






















soft wheat berries
yogurt
water
dried-mint flakes or finely chopped fresh mint
oregano leaves
red pepper flakes
olive oil
salt

-Boil wheat berries with a good amount of water until cooked. (You can cook more than you need for the day and keep the rest in the refrigerator for at least a week)
-Take as much as you need in a big bowl and add yogurt on top enough to cover the berries when mixed. (We always add a little more than necessary to cover berries)
-If you like a thick bowl of soup, do not add water, but if you like it thinner add some water. With this soup, everything is up to you; you can add more or less of everything.
-Sprinkle mint, oregano, pepper flakes, and salt on top.
-Add 1 or 2 tbsp of olive oil.
-Mix and serve cold.

This recipe with the dried herbs is for Weekend Herb Blogging. WHB was founded by Kalyn and is hosted by Zorra from Kochtopf.

Read More