Guest Blog Post: Zerrin of Give Recipe

Enjoy learning about unique ingredients, flavors, spices, or techniques in the kitchen?

This is certainly one dish that I am thrilled to share, having never worked with or prepared dried eggplant. In my thirty-six years of cooking, it is a thrill continuing to learn new culinary delights, and that keeps me excited in the kitchen.

Let me introduce you to my guest, her name is Zerrin, she is the force behind her food blog ?Give Recipe (www.giverecipe.com) enjoy Turkish Dishes?. She is revealing a unique recipe using dried eggplant. I am so happy to have Zerrin as a guest on Cajun Chef Ryan today!

About Zerrin

Zerrin is a Turkish woman living in Eski?ehir, Turkey and working as a teacher. She feels happy when cooking something for her family and friends. It?s a pleasure for her to watch people with their smile on their face while eating.

Zerrin?s love of cooking started as a little child by messing her mom’s dishes up! Despite all her mom’s effort to teach her how to cook, she was happy as an ‘assistant’. What made her want to jump to an upper level was her dad’s compliments for the first dish she made herself. Finally, her husband, who claims that ancient humans were stronger than we are today as their main food source was meat, helped her love cooking meat dishes and improving vegetable dishes to make them more edible for him!

The Recipe

Here is Zerrin?s original recipe for stuffed dried eggplant, I hope you join me in welcoming her today!

Stuffed Dried Eggplant

By Zerrin of ?Give Recipe? (www.giverecipe.com)

When I saw the post at Ryan?s blog about a call for guest posts, I said ?I must join? to introduce Turkish dishes on a different blog from mine. So I decided to give a recipe of a very common dish in our cuisine. We love to stuff things with various filling mixtures and most commonly we stuff vegetables like zucchini, grape leaves, cabbage, green or red bell pepper and eggplants. You might have tried these before. To make it more Turkish and more traditional, I decided to share how to stuff dried eggplants here. Have you ever noticed sun dried eggplants at a market before? If you ever happen to see them, buy and try. They have a different flavor than the fresh ones when stuffed. I make the vegetarian version, but you can also add mince or meats into the filling mixture. Also, I didn’t? use pine nuts and currants but it?s very common to add these into the filling. So here is the recipe:

NOTE: The ratio of rice to dried eggplant pieces is 1 tablespoon of rice for each piece of dried eggplant. This recipe calls for 20 pieces of dried eggplant, therefore, the 20 tablespoons of rice. (1¼ cup)

Ingredients


20
Dried
Eggplants


2
Liters
Water, to boil the dried eggplants (1/2 gallon approximate.)


1¼
Cup
Rice, uncooked (20 Tbsp)


2
Large
Onions, minced


Optional
Pine nuts and currants


¾
Cup
Olive oil


½
Lemon
Juice squeezed


1
Tsp
Cinnamon


2
Tsp
Mint, dried


1
Tsp
Red pepper flakes


To taste
Salt and ground black pepper


½
Bunch
Fresh parsley, finely chopped


1 ½
Cups
Hot water, divided

Procedure Steps


1.
Heat the water in a pot and add the dried eggplants when it comes to a boil.  Let it boil for about 10 minutes or less until eggplants are tender. Take them out when tender,  wash them with cold water and drain.

2.
Heat olive oil in a pan and saute onion in it. If you want to use pine nuts and currants, saute them with onions.


3.
Add rice and stir. Season it with spices, add lemon juice and pour ½ cup hot water and cook it over low heat until water is absorbed.  Take it aside when it?s done and toss minced parsley into it.


4.
Stuff dried eggplants with this mixture. Do it with your hands and leave a little space on the top as rice will rise when cooked. Place them in a pot.


5.
Pour 1 cup hot water onto them and cook over low heat for about 30 minutes.

6.
You can drizzle some extra virgin olive oil when cooked before serving. You can serve them warm or cold with yogurt. 

 

Bon appetite!

CCR

=:~)

©2011 CCR