Spicing it up … Imam Bayildi (stuffed eggplant)
Felt like a bit of something spicy after a few “plainer” delights the past week or so. Called the poor man’s meat, more like a filling optifaster’s heaven ! Slow cooked, heaps of ottoman or Turkish flavour, great the next day and for packed lunches with some salad. Extremely filling, half an eggplant is the serve size and I had trouble even getting through that. This traditional recipe does use a heap of olive oil, I’ve cut it down to the 1 tsp per serve and increased the cooking times to get the flavour out of every drop !
Imam bayildi (stuffed eggplant)
2015-10-18 18:40:52
Serves 4
Called the poor man's meat, I rather think of it as the rich optifaster's delight ! Well worth the long cooking time as you can set and leave at each step. Fabulous eaten the day after cooking at room temperature as well. A good one for packed lunches. Absolutely flavour packed. Serves four using half an eggplant each, which is a very filling meal in itself.
Ingredients
- 2 medium sized eggplants
- 1 lemon, squeezed, reserving the squeezed lemons themselves
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 1 onion, peeled, cut in half and thinly sliced into rounds
- 1 red capsicum, cut into 1 cm cubes
- 2 large garlic cloves, sliced thinly
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 3/4 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp minced red chilli (or 1/2 tsp chilli powder)
- 400g can of low salt tinned tomatoes
- ½ tsp stevia or other sweetener
- 2 sprigs fresh oregano (or 1/2 tsp dried)
- 1 tsp dried oregano, for the topping
Instructions
- Shave long strips of peel off the eggplants from top to bottom (see pic). They look striped like a zebra. Starting 1 cm in from the top, make one cut halfway into the flesh , ending 1 cm from the bottom. This will allow all the flavour in when cooking.
- Put the eggplant in a large bowl and cover with cold water. Add leftover squeezed lemons (not the juice) and 1 tbs salt. Put a dish or lid on top, leave to soak for 30 minutes. Drain them and then pat dry with a clean tea towel.
- Heat the oil in a large fry pan on a medium heat. Fry the eggplant for 15 minutes until browned all over, turning regularly. Add the onion, garlic, chilli, spices and capsicum. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring often, until soft. Stir in the tomatoes, 2 tbs of water, the stevia and fresh oregano sprigs (or dried). Turn the heat down to low and cook for 45 mins.
- While waiting, heat the oven to 180°C. Lift out the eggplants and put them in a baking dish (I used a 20cm x 30cm ceramic dish). At the cut you made at the start, prise the eggplants open, they will look like little canoes. Spoon the contents of the pan into the eggplants and splash the lemon juice over the top and some black pepper. Cover dish with foil and bake for 45 minutes.
- Remove the foil and let sit at room temperature for a little while. Serve topped with a sprinkling of dried oregano and salt/black pepper. A little sprinkle of sumac is also nice.
Notes
- Flavours develop so great if left overnight in the fridge and reheated.
- If you don't like the heat, remove the chilli from the recipe
- Can also use the stuffing for other vegetables such as zucchini, large tomatoes or capsicums.
- Nutritional panel notes
- Please note that the nutritional panel on this recipe is inaccurate. I have requested alterations with recipe card. This recipe adheres to the under 100 Cal and 10 carb rules.
Opti Cook https://opticook.org/
This error message is only visible to WordPress admins