Mediterranean Style Braised Eggplant

Rice U's Mediterranean grill has a wonderful Turkish eggplant salad/appetizer, which I've decided to replicate it at home. I was sure I can find the recipe online, but unfortunately the internet failed me this time. So I had to use my imagination again (hoping that my taste buds won't fail me) in trying to reconstruct the dish from memory. As a starting point I used the Imam Bayildi (The Priest Fainted) recipe, but stripped it down to its very basics, and instead of stuffing the eggplants with the onion-tomato sauce, I braised everything in the oven for 1.5 hours. As I understand, the Turkish secret to the perfect eggplants is cooking them for an extended time, until they become melt-in-your-mouth creamy. They also serve it at room temperature, rather than hot, straight out of the oven.

So, brace yourselves, my friends, this is what I came up with.

What I used:

2 large eggplants

1 onion

2 large ripe tomatoes (it's summer, so I used local, Texan heirloom tomatoes)

1.5 tablespoon sugar

Juice of 0.5 lemon

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup water

salt and pepper

a lot of olive oil. I didn't measure it, but I must have used about 1/2-3/4 cups.

How I made it:

First I washed and peeled the eggplants, cut them lengthwise in 1/2 inch slices, salted them, and left them drain in a colander for an hour. Then I rinsed them in cold water, patted them dry, and fried them on both sides in 1 tablespoon olive oil at a time, adding more oil as they soaked it completely up. I placed the eggplants in a greased ovenproof dish.

After that I prepared the sauce:

I chopped the onios, blanched the tomatoes, removed their skins and sliced them. Then I caramelized  the onion with 1 tbs sugar in 1 tbs olive oil, on medium high heat (5 min), then I added the tomatoes, lemon juice, 1/2 tbs sugar, 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, seasoned the sauce with salt and freshly ground balck pepper and coked it for 10 minutes. When the sauce was ready, I poured it over the eggplants...

...then I added 1/2 cup water, covered the dish with aluminum foil, and braised it in the preheated oven (at 325 degrees) for an hour, then uncovered it and baked it for 20 minutes more.

Serve it at room temperature as an appetizer, or as a side dish with baked chicken.

Note: the result tastes different than the dish served at Rice, but it's darned good nonetheless. Next time, for a more similar taste, I might skip the onion, and increase the amount of sugar and lemon juice, for a more pronounced sweet-and-sour flavor.

Potato, Kale and White Bean Soup

I adapted some Spanish/Portuguese Kale Soup recipes found on the internet, to make the soup just a little lighter, without skipping the meat altogether. So, instead of chorizo I used smoked turkey legs. A few weeks back, when I made this soup for the first time, I actually used turkey bacon, which made it even lighter. This picture was taken then, and as you can see, the vegetables overpowered the kale a little - so at Peter's suggestion (who wanted a kale soup more similar to my Lettuce and White Bean Soup, recipe to follow), I increased the amount of kale from 1 bunch to 2.

Ingredients (makes 8 servings):

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 bunches of kale, cleaned, thick stems removed, and cut in 1-1.5 cm strips

3 medium potatoes, diced

4 medium carrots, sliced

1 (14 oz) can white beans (or any beans of your choice, really), rinsed

1 smoked turkey leg, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced

64 oz chicken broth

2 Tbs olive/sunflower/vegetable oil

Preparation:

Heat the oil on medium in a large soup pot, saute the onions for 5 minutes, add the turkey, and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the carrots and the potatoes, add a little water (about half a cup) and cook covered for ten minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid burning. In the meantime, in a large skillet wilt the kale, until almost done  - just add a little water (about 3/4 cup), and cook covered for 5-7 minutes. After ten minutes of sauteing, add the broth to the vegetables and turkey, cook for 15 minutes, then add the wilted kale, the minced garlic and the rinsed beans, and cook for another 5 minutes. It's best served with freshly grated Parmesan (we skipped it now, but maybe we won't next time). Enjoy!