Eggplant with Ground Meat and Yogurt
Eggplant season is coming to an end. At my grandmother's place, they say eggplants aren't as good after August 15th, but here I am still finding sweet eggplants in mid-September. It happened that I just received 3 kg of mutton from Oitele din Copaceni. Perfect timing to make this Turkish combination I've been craving for a while.
Ingredients
4 medium eggplants (2 kg)
salt
Meat Sauce
400g ground lamb/mutton (or beef)
1 onion
2 semi-hot Bulgarian peppers (or 1 light green bell pepper)
1 level tablespoon tomato paste
1 level tablespoon pepper paste
1 medium ripe tomato (or 2 canned)
3/4 teaspoon Turkish spice blend
50ml water
3 sprigs parsley
2 tablespoons oil
salt
Garlic Yogurt
300g plain yogurt
2 cloves of garlic
salt
Spiced Oil
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 teaspoon pul biber (or chili flakes and a little sweet paprika)
1/4 teaspoon crushed dried mint
How to prepare eggplant with ground meat and yogurt
- Roast the eggplants, then peel them and remove the flesh following the instructions here. Place the flesh in a colander and let it cool. Roughly chop the eggplants, passing the wooden chopper over them only a couple of times - don't make them as fine as for eggplant salad. Sprinkle with salt while chopping.
- Heat the oil and add the finely chopped onion and the cleaned pepper cut into smaller pieces. Sauté over low heat until the onion is soft (about 10 minutes).
- Add the pastes (tomato and pepper) and leave for another minute to caramelize a bit.
- Add the ground meat, turn the heat to medium, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the meat has changed color throughout.
- Add salt, Turkish spice blend and the grated tomato. Mix well. Add water and when it starts to boil, put on the lid, turn heat to low and let it simmer for 25 minutes. During this time, stir a couple of times and make sure the meat doesn't dry out too much. Taste for salt.
- Add the chopped parsley to the meat sauce.
- Crush the garlic and rub it with a little salt. Add the yogurt and mix until smooth. If the yogurt is very thick and doesn't flow slowly off the spoon, add a drop of milk to make it slightly fluid.
- In a small saucepan, heat the oil and add the chili and mint. Leave on heat for maximum 1 minute.
- Serving: place the eggplants on a platter; sprinkle the meat on top; pour yogurt all over; drizzle the spiced oil over the yogurt. You can make a single platter or 4 individual plates from these quantities. It's good warm or at room temperature. Serve with Turkish bread.
