So, I mentioned a while back that I was tackling this Turkish dish a while back and I said I'd do a photo thing on it. So here it is:
You will need:
2 lbs. or almost 1 kilo of eggplant, charred
1 lb. lamb shoulder (I used two mutton shoulder chops but any red meat with bones and lots of connective tissue is good), cubed into 1 inch cubes
2 yellow onions, diced
1 green pepper, diced and seeded
1 big hot pepper (I used Serrano), diced and seeded
4 tomatoes, diced and seeded
3 cloves of garlic, grated
1 TBSP lemon juice
2 bay leaves
A few sprigs of thyme
A few sprigs of oregano
Some flat parsely
2 cups of milk
2 TBSPS heavy cream
1 TBSP tomato paste (canned is fine)
4 TBSPS butter, plus one knob for the meat
3 TBSPS flour (any)
2 cups of stock
1 cup of grated hard cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano (I used Pecorino Romano because it's made from ewe's milk, in keeping with the mutton thing)
Some nutmeg
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Basically, this is two dishes: the lamb/mutton and then the eggplant puree that the lamb/mutton rests on. I guess you could also use beef or any other red meat.
First, prep your eggplant by rubbing them down with vegetable oil and sprinkling with sea salt. The oil and the salt are not for flavor, but to better conduct heat and to draw out moisture.
Next, put it under the broiler, set on high. Better yet, use a grill. I didn't because it was raining most of the day.
While the eggplant is charring, cube the meat.
Once the meat is cubed, cover it and stick it in the fridge for a while. Take the bones from the meat and make 2 cups of stock. So, bones in water with a little salt and if you want to get fancy, a bay leaf, a quarter of an onion, a third of a carrot and a third of a celery stalk (I didn't bother). Set it to boil and then let it simmer a good long while. When you are done, chuck them bones.
When the entire outside of the eggplant is charred and the skin is splitting, take it out and peel the skin off. Remove as many seeds as possible and place the flesh in a colander to drain.
You should end up with this:
Take that colander (or a sieve) and put it in a bowl of cold water. Mix in the lemon juice and a little salt. This keeps the eggplant from discoloring and allows the bitter black water to come out of the flesh.
At this point you can continue on to the meat, or you can be like me and take a break. I took the dog out and we saw some turkeys, by coincidence.
On to the meat. Cut up your peppers, onions and tomatoes and grate your garlic.
Next, get the meat out of the fridge and melt your knob of butter in a big saucepan and add an equal amount of olive oil. Liberally season the meat with salt and pepper. When the fat is hot, brown the meat.
Once all sides are browned, set the meat aside, leaving all the fat in the pan. Add the bay leaves at this point and saute your onions and peppers in the fat until soft. Add the tomatoes and garlic and cook some of the liquid off. Once the mix is a bit dry (but not browning) re-add your meat and stir it together. At this point, your stock should be ready. Add 2 cups of it and the tomato paste to the meat and the vegetables so you get this:
Bring that all to a boil and let it simmer, uncovered for an hour. Add the oregano and thyme at this point. You can pull the leaves off, or be lazy like me and just tie all the sprigs together with twine and throw it in. Now, back to the eggplant. Transfer your eggplant to a fine mesh strainer/sieve and pour the water from the bowl through it so you get all the eggplant. This way, it is also easy to get out any stray seeds or charred eggplant skin. Make sure to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Set it aside.
Next, start making a bechamel sauce by melting 4 TBSPS (1/2 stick) of butter in a wide pan. Wide is good because it helps to evaporate liquid and we want a pretty thick sauce.
Once the butter has bubbled, add 3 TBSPS of flour and whisk it together.
You want the roux (the flour and butter) to smell very nutty. As always with a roux, do not burn it or your sauce will be terrible. If you burn the roux, turn down your burner and start again. Once it smells really nice, add your milk and heavy cream, a little bit at a time, making sure to whisk constantly until it is velvety and smooth. Allow it to cook for a little while before adding a little salt and pepper. Then add your eggplant and allow it to cook together for about 10 minutes. Season with more salt and pepper and some nutmeg. Add your cheese and allow to cook for a few minutes more.
At the end of the hour, remove your meat from the heat and add chopped parsley as a garnish.
Serve the meat over the eggplant like so.
Shoutouts:
lil, cgod, eightbitsamurai, nowaypablo
Notes:
I'm really happy how this came out and I would definitely make it again!
Thanks 8bit for the help!
nowaypablo, even though I used mutton the meat was very tender and because it is basically a ragout, it was not at all dry.
Edit: This serves about 4 people. Totally worth it though. Highly recommended.
This took me about 3 hours. It would have gone much faster if I'd used the grill and used smaller eggplants. Edit: Oh and I had to find some gloves so I could seed that Serrano. I don't know if I really needed them, but I had a bad experience once seeding chilis. Yup, got it on my junk.
Made this tonight, turned out great. I used tomatoes, peppers and garlic from my garden. Everyone but the kid loved it and I the kid didn't so much not like it as she just wasn't eating tonight (not uncommon, she is a puny punk). In the comments below people seemed concerned about the eggplant seeds. I wouldn't sweat it, seeds want to get out of the flesh on most plants, eggplants are no different. You won't notice the seeds you miss processing the eggplant. I peeled the tomatoes and minced the garlic instead of grating it. Thanks for the post, your recipe was easy to follow and I enjoyed it a lot.
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know; I'm really glad that something I shared turned out well for someone else (and that my instructions weren't fucked). Sorry to hear that it didn't break the kid barrier, but you've mentioned that your daughter doesn't have much of an appetite sometimes and I guess this isn't exactly the kid friendliest dish. How did you find the recipe in terms of effort? I know there are a bunch of steps and it looks kind of technical, but I didn't think that it was too bad.
It's time consuming. If you aren't comfortable in the kitchen it might be a hard recipe (raw meat, strange vegetable processing and a roux). I have years of prep cooking and line cooking to back me up, so it wasn't a challenge. I've read hundred's of recipes, yours was way more comprehensive than all but a few really specialized recipes that I've seen. Your pictures and explanations would make this the kind of more complex recipe that a novice cook could hope to have a go at, stuff like explaining the ins and outs of a roux. We ended up with enough to feed three adults and a kid. Think if I made it again I'd double up the portions so as to have leftovers. I've never seen a bechamel combined with a vegetable like that and I'd be curious to find other recipes that are like it, I found it really satisfying.
Is deseeding eggplants as big a pain in the ass as it sounds? The lamb looks so incredibly delicious. Might keep that in mind for a non-vegetarian meal at some point, but if I do make it I'll probably bed it on something else because I'm not a fan of eggplant.
No, the seeds in eggplant are pretty close together and the flesh comes apart very easily. Also, once you put it in the water, most of the seeds should fall through the colander or at least settle on the bottom. As for the meat, it's basically a ragout.
I doubted you, and I'm sorry. All hail Mushy Meat King Humanodon.
If you're vegetarian, maybe try a mushroom ragout? Or for texture, I bet zucchini fries or fried zucchini blossoms would work pretty well, though if you did the blossoms that's a lot of dairy.
Proceed to burn the rest of your house down because you've ruined everything. Okay, so this looks delicious and I want it. Never had eggplant like that before, what it's like when it's pureed? Saving this post for future reference, might be good for a slow afternoon. Questions: 1. What kind of tomatoes did you use? Hot house/heirloom/beefsteak/other? 2. How long did it take beginning to end, break notwithstanding (I'm sure your dog loved the turkeys by the way)?If you burn the roux...
Took about 3 hours, due to eggplant size and needing to find gloves to seed the Serrano. I ended up using these mostly because I'd never seen them before. They're good. I would use heirloom if possible or if not, beefsteak. Yeah, the dog doesn't fuck with the adult turkeys, but man, he was itching to run after those babies. Edit: All the dicing goes way faster if you get a friend or two.