Eggplant Kebab

Patlıcan Kebap

Summer is the season of many vegetables here, and one of the most outstanding vegetables in Summer is eggplant. We can see eggplants at markets in the Winter as well, but they don’t have the same taste as the ones at bazaars. The difference of these two shopping centers is so obvious at this point. I don’t know if this is the same in other countries, but although they are lower at price, the vegetables and fruits at bazaars are always much fresher. That’s why I always prefer shopping there. At bazaars, you are not allowed to pick the vegetables yourselves and fill your bag, sellers do it for you. You just tell him how many kilos you want. Some people may find it unfair and prefer markets as they are more free there to pick what they want. But what does it mean when they are not that fresh?

I think I must talk on the meanings of market and bazaar in our culture. Market is the same in Turkish, just its pronounciation is different, but its meaning may also have some difference from its English meaning. Market is a closed area (I mean which has a roof) with many things like canned/packaged foods, vegetables and fruits, detergents, kitchen utensils, garden tools, so many various things. Here we buy things, put it in the shopping basket and pay it to cashiers in cash or with credit cards. As for bazaar, we call it ‘pazar’ in Turkish and they are always at open areas. (I think they are also called open markets in English, I don’t know if they have difference.) They are open in certain neighborhoods on certain days, so you have to wait for that day for shopping and people generally buy their needs weekly. Unlike markets, these bazaars are generally based on vegetables, fruits, homemade breads, cheese, yogurt, no detergent or other things not related to food, but some bigger ones may have clothes stands. And we must pay in cash at bazaars, no credit cards.

Besides the fresh foods, the thing I love the most at bazaars is the conversations I have with the sellers and other people who are shopping there. I think markets add to modern indivual’s alienation, no social relationships there, just fill your shopping basket and pay. Of course the role of the music playing at markets can not be ignored here. It prevents you from feeling lonely and also it makes you feel yourself as an important person. I know many people ‘visiting’ markets to spend time, not for shopping, they just watch the aisles, compare products and leave. On the contrary, you feel the life energy and interactions between people by the time you approach to a bazaar. You start to hear sellers’ voices trying to attract customers. You can ask sellers where that product is grown and talk for a while. You can even get a recipe from a seller or an old lady while shopping. Sellers at our bazaars are always so funny and creative, they find different descriptions or slogans for their products and they continually repeat them in a high tone. They may suddenly break a cucumber in half just as you’re passing along to show how fresh it is and say it is like fresh green almond.

The seller which sold me these eggplants was repeating this; ‘perfect for kebab, perfect for kebab, perfect for kebab, come on look at this’. As you can guess, I went and buy as I was intrigued by the word ‘kebab’ (kebap in Turkish). Kebab is the general name of meat dishes grilled on skewers on wood fire. It has many varieties and it can be made from lamb(the best for me) or beef, diced or minced. There are also some meat dishes cooked in pots on stove but called kebab though.

This eggplant kebab is traditionally grilled on wood fire and eggplants and meatballs are strung on skewers, but I cooked it in oven, so I didn’t use skewers. Homemade version is made with this method.

Ingredients (serving 4)
- 4 eggplants
- 2 tomatoes
- 4 green peppers
- 250gr (9oz) ground meat
- 1 big onion, grated
- A handful of bread crumb
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 4 tbsp olive oil

Slice the eggplants in circular shape, they shouldn’t be too thin as eggplant is an easily cooked vegetable. Wait them in salted water for 15 min. To remove its bitterness.

Meanwhile, you can prepare the meatballs. Combine ground meat, grated onion, bread crumb and spices. Knead it to combine these well. Take a piece in your hand, if it doesn’t spread, it’s done. You can add a little more bread crumb if needed. Then take pieces as big as a walnut and first roll it in your hands then gently press on it to give it a flat shape. Repeat this until all ground meat finishes.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Drain the eggplant slices. Oil an oven tray and lay the eggplant slices and meatballs as you see in the picture. If you still have some eggplant slices at the end, you can place them in the empty places of the tray.

Cut the tomatoes in half and place them in the tray with peppers, you can use them help the eggplant slices to stand still. Pour 4 tbsp olive oil on them and cook in the oven for 45 minutes. After this time, check if the eggplants are soft enough by inserting a fork on one of them. Cook 5 or 10 minutes more if needed. Put each eggplant-meatball combination on a service plate with a tomato and pepper and serve it hot.

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Eggplant Feast

Zeytinyagli Patlican

When Summer is close, we start to cook different dishes from eggplants as we know that these are real eggplants not fake as in Winter time. And this one is our favorite. The best part of Spring and Summer for me is that I have more time in a day, it doesn’t quickly get dark here after March. Day time is longer than night time. I can’t take the advantage of open markets in Winter very often because generally when I leave work, it’s already dark and here open markets are “open” just during day time. But beginning from March, they are open longer and I enjoy shopping from open markets as I desire.

In Turkey open markets are not stable, they have certain places on each day of a week. The reason for this is to provide the same chance to all neighborhoods. As you know, everything is cheaper and more fresh in open markets, so people prefer shopping there. On Monday, the open market is in our neighborhood, close to our home and on Friday, it is close to the school I work. So today, after leaving school, on the way home, I popped round the open market and came home with several bags. I was a bit tired and I didn’t want to wait long for dinner, so when I saw some very fresh eggplants, I made up my mind. Although my hubby is a meat lover, he adores this eggplant dish and never refuses to eat it. Besides its hearty taste, the easiness of its preperation was my concern today.

And we had an unexpected guest for dinner. Our neighbor forgot her house keys and rang our bell just as we were sitting dinner table. She asked if she could wait until her husband came, we certainly welcomed her and put one more plate on the table. We had our dinner together and she said that she was so lucky to forget her keys as she had the chance of tasting and learning this quick eggplant dish.

Ingredients
-3 eggplants
-4 middle sized tomatoes, diced
-2 green peppers, chopped
-4 cloves garlic, sliced into two
-1 onion, chopped
-1/2 tbsp tomato paste(optional)
-1/2 tsp sugar
-1tsp salt
-1tsp black pepper
-4tbsp natural olive oil

Wash the eggplants and throw the leaves away. Do not cut the whole stems, leave a little piece of it. I didn’t peel them, but if you like, you can. Cut them in two from the middle horizantally. Then, grab the half with the stem and cut them  into four lengthwise until the stem. Do not cut them completely. As for the other half, you can cut them in finger shape. Wait these in a salty water for at least 15 minutes so that the bitterness of eggplants goes away.

Heat the oil in a pot and saute the chopped onion until golden. Drain the eggplants and add them in the pot. Cook them over medium heat until the eggplants change their color. Then add the paste, tomatoes, peppers and garlic. Sprinkle sugar, salt and black pepper and cover the pot. Cook them over low heat for about 40 minutes and do not open the cover until it’s done.

You can garnish it with some leaves of basil and if you serve a bowl of home made yogurt near it, it’s inevitable to feel in heaven.

The Perfect Couple

This was the first date of Miss Eggplant and Mr Cucumber. They came accross with each other in several open markets and covered markets before, and they were both impressed by each other. Eventually they could escape from the their stands and met at a solitary neighborhood. Miss Eggplant complimented Mr Cucumber about his cooling and skin beautifying effects while he flattered Miss Eggplant about her unforgettable taste when prepared with natural olive oil. He added “You are the best cure for skin cancer! We’ll make a perfect couple as we are both curative for skin.” They felt closer with these nice words and decided to go to a patisserie for a romantic chat. (drawing by mom)

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Meat on Boat

Today we wanted to make something special for dinner. We usually prefer raki if we want to have some alcohol at dinner. But today we decided to have red wine instead and that’s why we thought that it would be better to try something new, something not eaten with raki before. We love red wine either with some high quality cheese or red meat. As it’s been a long time since we ate meat last (it was four big days ago!), we prefer meat. The red wine we had was Terra/Shiraz from Kayra wines. And it accompanied  our dish of eggplant and meat very well. The name of this dish is given by me because or its shape. The original name of it is “Bostan Kebabı”.

Ingredients
•    4 medium size eggplant
•    1 onion, diced
•    200gr veal steak, diced
•    2 green peppers, diced
•    1 tomato
•    6 cloves garlic, diced
•    ½ tbsp tomato paste
•    1 cup vegetable oil (for frying)
•    3 tbsp olive oil
•    Salt
•    Black pepper
•    Cumin
•    ½ cup water

As it will last longer to cook the meat, start with it. Heat 3 tbsp olive oil in a pan and add the diced meat. Saute it until all the water evaporates. Then add diced onion, garlic and pepper. Saute them until they change color. Then add tomato paste and spices and cook for a few minutes more. Then add water and salt in it. Cook it over the lowest heat until tender.

While the meat is cooking, you can start preparing the eggplants. Peel the eggplants striped. Cut a lengthways piece of it. It shouldn’t be deep cut. That piece will be like the lid of the eggplant. Then scoop out the middle of the eggplant, leave a little bit on the sides and bottom. Give it a shape of a boat.

Wait the eggplants in salty water for half an hour. Strain and dry them.

Preheat the oven to 220 C (428F).

Heat 1 cup vegetable oil in frying pan. Fry the eggplants a little. Don’t fry them much as they’ll also be cooked in oven. Place the fried eggplants in oven tray. Stuff these eggplants with meat with its sauce. You can pour some watery part of its sauce over them. Cut the tomato in finger shapes and place them on each eggplant. Cook it in oven for about half an hour.

A bowl of home made yogurt will be perfect companion for this tasty dish. I use some grains of pomegranate to make it more colorful.

And we continued the night by watching a striking film by Michael Moore, Sicko. So it becomes impossible to end this post with some nice words. No, the problem is not the movie, it was great. But the things we learnt in the film made us feel so sorry.

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Eggplant/Aubergine with Yogurt

If you haven’t tasted raki yet, you’ve a great emptiness in your life. I strongly recommend you to drink it. There are a lot of appetizers accompanying this unique drink.

Yesterday, my best friend came from Adana and to celebrate this, we prepare a wonderful table on which there are various appetizers. Here I’ll give one of these appetizers, Eggplant/Aubergine with Yogurt made by my best friend. So this is her recipe.

Ingredients
•    2 big eggplants
•    3 cloves garlic, mashed
•    ½ cup yogurt (strained)
•    1 tsp salt
•    Red pepper flakes and dried mint for garnish

We will grill the eggplants, so stab the eggplants with a fork so that its inside will cook as well as the outer part.

There are a few ways of grilling vegetables.

1)Preheat the oven to 200C and put eggplants in oven. Cook them until they get very soft (at least 20min). (We followed this)

2)You can grill them on a non stick pan. This time, you should occasionally turn them over, shouldn’t leave them.

3)If you have an electric grill, you can do the same on it.

4)The best is to cook them within ember, if you have the chance of course. This is both more delicious and quicker.

After choosing the best way for you, grill the eggplants. Then peel them and mash them. They shouldn’t be too smooth. If you like, do not use a blender, do it with a pounder like tool instead. You can decide its smoothness better.

Then put yogurt in a bowl and mix it with a spoon until smooth. Then add mashed garlic and salt in it. Mix it again. Some people make it without garlic, but if you ask me, it is not the same and not as hearty as the one with garlic. Finally add mashed eggplants and mix fort he last time.

Put this mixture on a plate. Flatten it with the inverse of spoon. Garnish it with some pepper and dried mint.

Enjoy it with a glass of raki.

Note: This can also be a great side dish with any meal. If you don’t have a chance of drinking raki, eat this appetizer at any time with any dish.

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