Turkish-style Stuffed Eggplants

'Twas winter, and the slithy veg

Did whiffle in the tulgey store:

Tomatoes pale and kale unhale

Lead cooks to yearn for more.

Yet beamish eggplants, gloaming bright

More frumious than any foe

Are firm and frabjous, as they are

Imported in from Mexico.

One two! One two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.

I halved them flat and stuffed them up

With lentils for a tasty sup.

***************

This particular meal -- which featured homemade Turkish lavash, kidney bean salad, olives and stuffed eggplants -- was inspired by recipes in Sarah Beattie's Vegetarian 30 Minute Turkish Cookbook (London: Thorsons, 1998).

Tea-towel and tea-lights in an attempt to make my Ikea table look more Turkish. 

Note the phrasing "inspired by." I love the premise of this cookbook -- that vegetarian Turkish cuisine exists, that it can be prepared quickly, and that simple, fresh ingredients yield delicious food -- but the actual recipes are seriously misleading. First, the proportions in many of the recipes are way off. Secondly, many of the recipes take far longer than 30 minutes, even for an experienced cook.

Kidney beans, carrots, and potatoes marinated in lemony tomato sauce.

For example, Beattie's bean salad recipe calls for half as many beans and twice as much lemon as I used. Mine nonetheless tastes extremely lemony, on the verge of too acerbic. Also, the recipe calls for one carrot and one potato, diced and cooked in the pan until soft. To actually soften carrots and potatoes in the pan, even when relatively finely cubed, takes a long time -- and in my haste to make the 30-minute deadline, a.k.a. my growl-stomached impatience to finish the dish, my carrots and potatoes came out undercooked, despite frying them on high for 20 minutes. Crunchy potatoes are the worst. And in both recipes (the bean salad and eggplants), I used 1/2 and 1/4 (respectively) the onions called for the recipe, and it was more than enough. Who needs 2 diced onions for enough eggplant to serve 4 people? That's half an onion per capita. WTF (= what the food)??

Of course, my preparation of this meal was not aided by the unexpected discovery that MY OVEN IS BROKEN. I was just about to put in the eggplants when I realized that it smelled strongly of gas and was cold as a cucumber inside. Good thing I didn't blow myself up, or Sylvia Plath myself; but determined not to give up, I prepared the entire dinner on the stovetop, primarily in a wok, and it took forever.

So overall, a delicious meal that took way longer than it should have. If you use an oven as the recipe specifies, you'll be in good shape.

Rather than reproducing the author's recipe verbatim, here's my own modified recipe. The lentil filling makes way too much, but this way you can have the leftovers as a tasty lentil stew. Or you can cut the ingredients in 1/4 if you want just enough for the eggplants.


Turkish-style Lentil Stuffed Eggplants

Ingredients
4-5 baby eggplants (the kind that are ca. 5 inches long)
1 cup dried lentils, rinsed (recipe calls for 1 can lentils, which saves cooking time but yields less flavorful filling)
Enough veggie broth to cover lentils plus 2 inches
1 14oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Cumin, salt, pepper to taste
Chopped parsley
Olive oil

Method
Begin by preparing the lentil filling. Brown lentils take a while to cook, and the longer this filling simmers, the tastier it becomes. Thus multitask by making something else -- salad, lavash, etc. -- while the filling is cooking.

Fry the onion and cumin in olive oil, then add the lentils, broth (or salted water), and tomatoes (including juice) and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook until lentils are soft, stirring occasionally. Once lentils are soft, turn off heat and add salt/pepper to taste, then stir in chopped parsley.

When the lentils are about 3/4 done (a bit chewy/crunchy, but softened somewhat), prepare the eggplants. This recipe calls for baby eggplants, which cook quickly and are kind of adorable.

After washing eggplants, cut off stems and halve lengthwise. Coat generously in olive oil and bake in oven at 350° F. Remove when eggplants are soft all the way through. 

(But of course, since my oven was broken, I cooked them a few at a time in the wok. It was a pain.)

Scoop out eggplant flesh, careful not to damage the exterior shell. Chop flesh, mix with enough lentil filling to stuff eggplants, and pile into the eggplant shells.

At this stage, the eggplants are finished. If you prefer vegetarian to vegan, you can sprinkle cheese on top, such as the parmesan seen in my final photo. Before I knew my oven was broken, I was planning to crumble goat cheese on top, then pop them back in the oven. 

These eggplants are delicious with any sort of pita, flatbread, lavash, or crusty bread. The Turkish lavash I made came from this blog and it turned out well. Oil-cured olives are also a tasty accompaniment.

Overall, a delicious meal. I'll include the (modified) bean salad recipe below, for those who wish to duplicate it in its entirety. 

Marinated Kidney Bean Salad

Ingredients
1/2 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 waxy potato, diced
2 cups Italian strained tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
2 14oz cans red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 tbsp sugar
1 lemon, juiced
Chopped parsley
Salt to taste

Method
Fry the carrot and potato in olive oil until mostly soft. Add onion towards the end of this process, since it takes less time than the other veggies. When onion is translucent, add garlic, beans, tomatoes, and sugar. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat, salt to taste, and add lemon juice. Top with parsley and refrigerate overnight for marinated goodness, or eat warm with bread.

Uh... yum.