Let’s all wish Papa Dani California Cooks a very happy birthday today!
Back in January, I made a list of 12 cooking resolutions to accomplish over the year. January was making homemade Larabars and February I took on making fresh spring rolls and April I experimented with how to make dried fruit in the oven. So I’m a bit behind…because it’s June and we’re just working on resolution #4. Guess we’ll just have to chug through the rest of them double-time!
Last August, Nate and I spent two weeks traveling around Turkey and for me, it was a food paradise. So much eggplant and dried fruit and fresh fish and lamb and hummus and things to dip in with warm bread and lentil soup and cheeses and pide (like pizza) and so. much. eggplant! We even went on a culinary walking tour and tried a few more exotic foodstuffs of Turkey. My favorite thing by far was all of the eggplant in all sorts of forms.
Even in the heat, you can’t beat the pureed lentil soup with homemade hummus, lamb meatballs, and fresh bread
I was really culinary inspired by our trip to Turkey, and wanted to learn how to recreate some of our favorite dishes back in the states. So I added to the list making turkish stuffed eggplants - one of my favorite things we would order for dinner. In Turkish, this classic recipe translates to “split belly”. Kind of gross, but I guess visually it makes a little sense? It’s become a tradition for me and my brother to cook a feast for my parents for their birthdays, which happen to be June 1st and June 2nd. This was year #4 of this tradition, and it may have been our best. We definitely keep becoming better home chefs every year!
There were certainly a few mishaps in the kitchen. There may have been a cake flipping disaster, I may have brandished a few knives at Isaac and/or Nate, and we pretty much used every dish/plate/pan that exists in my parents kitchen. But slaving away in the kitchen had its benefits because we ended up with a DELICIOUS and thoughtful meal. The whole menu was Mediterranean and Turkish themed. We started out with a beautiful meze platter with homemade babaghanoush, and then had stuffed eggplants with an herby rice pilaf with peas and raisins. Ended the meal with a honey lemon almond cake baked with fresh figs inside. Everything was exotic and fresh, and we were about as stuffed as those eggplants after the meal (lol). A couple of other snapshots from our meal below…
I took the best of the web and combined a couple of different recipes to make the stuffed eggplants - I certainly went for the more simple route. While these are a bit time-consuming to make (like any stuffed vegetable) the ingredients list is short and it’s by no means technique heavy. This dish is also low carb, naturally gluten free, and pale0-friendly. I really enjoyed these, and I can definitely see myself making them again!
Eggplants hold a TON of moisture (hence their weight) so it’s important whenever you’re cooking with these beautiful veggies to salt them a bit and drain. Helps improve the texture. In the picture above, my eggplants are paitently being drained while awaiting the next steps - frying, scooping, and stuffing! We cooked these the traditional way, which is flesh (I hate that word) side down in some olive oil before scooping out the insides. I think it helps with the texture. I lightened up this recipe and only used a quarter cup of olive oil and only cooked the flesh side, instead of frying the entire eggplant. Then you scoop out most of the portion that has soaked up the oil, so the eggplant that you end up eating is mostly the baked portion.
The finished product was removed from the oven, topped with a little fresh parsley, and served immediately! Great presentation value, no?
The finished product, ready to be devoured!
- 3 large eggplants, halved
- 1.5 lbs ground beef (I used really nice, lean grass-fed ground beef)
- 1 green bell pepper, finely diced plus 6 julienned slivers (for decoration)
- 2 tomatoes, one diced and one sliced (for decoration)
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- Lots of olive oil
- Fresh chopped parsley
- Salt and pepper
- Lay the eggplants, flesh side up and sprinkle with salt. Beads of water will start to form as some of the moisture leaves the eggplant
- In large pan, pour in about a quarter cup of olive oil and turn on medium heat. Place the eggplants, flesh side in the oil, into the pan and cook for 5 minutes. My pan wasn't big enough to do all six, so I did three at a time and then used additional olive oil for the second round
- Remove eggplants from pan when the flesh side down has browned. Put eggplants in a baking dish and let cool
- In a large pan (you can use the same one you just used), cook the onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add the beef, diced peppers and tomatoes, and tomato paste and sautee until cooked, about 10 minutes. Add in a couple of tablespoons of freshly chopped parsley to the mixture when it's almost fully cooked
- While the beef is cooking, scoop out the insides of your eggplant until you create a shallow bowl in each. I used a grapefruit spoon for this, but you could certainly use a regular spoon and a knife if needed. It's OK if the middle parts of your eggplant aren't cooked from the first fry
- Once complete, scoop the beef stuffing into each eggplant until full
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
- In the baking dish, fill up with about ½ of water, so each eggplant is partially submerged. Make sure the water level doesn't overflow into the stuffing of each eggplant however
- Place a julienned bell pepper and tomato slice on each for decoration, and sprinkle each with salt and pepper
- Cover the baking dish(es) with foil
- Place in the oven for about 45 minutes, until the eggplants are tender. The longer you cook them, the better
- Carefully remove from the baking dish (these guys will be soft) and serve!
Thanks for stopping by! 
