Karniyarik - Turkish Style Eggplant with Lamb

Still keeping on with the theme of what I served for the dinner for eight the other night, when a few friends came over for dinner, this is the Main Course.

I really wasn't sure what I wanted to serve as the main meal. I wanted something a little different yet something that would be satisfying. Some years ago, we visited Turkey and about 4 years ago, I posted my variation of a dish we had enjoyed in Turkey that I called Turkish Style Lamb Sausages.

I learnt since then that what we actually had in Turkey and really enjoyed was Karniyarik - Turkish Stuffed Eggplant. For my version, I didn't really stuff the eggplant but rather cooked it with loads of minced lamb in a tomato based sauce.





I also used some fresh basil to give it some added flavour and I think if I make this again, I might spice it up a little with some chilli flakes. This is what I did:

Ingredients
900g minced lamb or mutton
3 bay leaves
2 large onions - chopped
8 cloves garlic - chopped
3 tsp oregano
4 tomatoes - quartered
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 Tbsp Tomato paste
50g fresh basil
6 large brinjals / eggplants (the longish kind)
Salt
Black Pepper
Method

Halve the brinjals lenghtwise and then cut into pieces about 4-6 inches length. Sprinkle with salt to degorge. Meanwhile, sautee the onions, garlic and oregano. Then add in the mince and cook well. Add in the fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes and allow to simmer.
While the meat is simmering, rinse the brinjals and then place in a baking tray. Lightly oil the brinjals and then make a small incision lengthwise followed by three diagonal incisions making sure you dont cut in too deep. Bake in a 170C oven till the eggplants are tender - about 30 mins.
Once the meat sauce is thick but still with enough liquid, season with salt and pepper. Add in the basil and mix well. Spoon a layer of the meat sauce into a baking pan then place the brinjals on the meat. Try to get the brinjals close to each other. Cover the eggplant with the remaining sauce and then cover with aluminium foil. Bake again in a 180C oven for another 30 mins to make sure brinjals are really tender and soak up some of the flavour from the meat sauce.


The brinjals turned out really well although there were some thicker parts that weren't as tender as they should have been. I had also thought of garnishing each brinjal with a slice of tomato and some sliced chilli but when the time came we were all too hungry and just wanted to get down to the business of eating!




I served this with rice and The Lovely Wife made a Greek Salad that went really well with this dish. I liked the mix of taste and textures and the mince tasted really good with the eggplant. My son had some the next day for lunch and he really enjoyed it. So all in all, a rather successful Karniyarik - although maybe not as authentic as it should or could have been!

Pesto, Eggplant and Mushroom Pasta

After making and devouring the Mushroom Burger with Pesto for lunch, there was still a considerable amount of pesto left over. The kids and The Lovely Wife liked the pesto so much that I decided to make a Pasta that very same night - using similar ingredients. I needed to pop down to the local Super to get more ingredients and I chose button mushrooms and a few more baby eggplant to go with the pasta.
The kids wanted Fettucine as their choice of pasta so that is what I used.

Ingredients
3 cloves garlic - chopped
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Basil
Pesto
2 baby Eggplant - sliced thinly
200g Button Mushrooms - sliced into chunks
Fettucine
Method
Fry the garlic with oregano and basil. Add in the sliced eggplant and cook over high heat till tender. Add in the mushrooms and cook till tender. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Cook the pasta and then toss in the Pesto and mix well until nicely combined. Serve the mushroom and eggplant over the pasta.

How easy is that? And how delicious did it turn out too! The whole family loved it as did I. The pasta becomes a nice green once coated with the Pesto and it even looks like it is a spinach pasta or some other sort of green pasta! Completely natural, completely healthy.



I'm sending this quick and easy dish over to Kirsten of From Kirsten's Kitchen to Yours who is hosting the ever popular Presto Pasta Nights for the fourth time it seems! Presto Pasta Nights is the brainchild of my friend Ruth from Once Upon a Feast. Now what could be better than sending in a Presto Pesto Pasta for Presto Pasta Nights? Enjoy!

Egg curry with eggplant

When I was young, my mother used to make a delicious egg curry. However, as I grew older, started cooking on my own, grew older, got married, grew older, had kids, grew older, this dish hardly made an appearance at our dining table.

That changed a few weeks ago. The Lovely Wife has been having a penchant for cooking Indian food using recipes from her collection of Indian Cookbooks. She decided to make this Egg curry and to say that it was delicious would be a tad of an understatement. It certainly brought back fond memories too!


This version of Egg Curry is a little different from how my mom used to make it. For one, this recipe uses eggplant that give the egg curry a nice distinctive flavour. I found it kind of funny (punny) that Eggplant is used in an Egg Curry - get it??!!



This is The Lovely Wifes interpretation of the recipe.

Ingredients
6 eggs
4 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
3 onions, sliced
3 green chillies, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 inch ginger, ground
handfull of curry leaves
1 tsp Tomato Paste
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
3 tomatoes, sliced
1 small eggplant, cut into large pieces
200g spinach leaves

Method
Place the eggs in a large saucepan. Cover with water and slowly bring to a boil. Lower the heat and allow to simmer for about 10 mins or till hardboiled. Drain and let cool in a bowl of cold water. Peel shelss and rinse the eggs to remove stray shells.
Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add onions, chillies, garlic, ginger and curry leaves. Cook stirring frequently until onions are soft. Add the tomato paste, ground coriander, turmeric, chili pwder, garam masala and a little salt. Cook, stirring for one minute.
Add the tomates, eggplants and spinach leaves. Cover and cook stirring from time to time for 6-7 minutes or until the gravy has blended with the eggplants and spinach. Add the hard boiled eggs to the pan and let them heat through in the curry for about 5 minutes before serving.

The recipe above comes from the book Indian Shortcuts to Success by Das Sreedharan.

Das claims that "Spicy egg dishes, such as this one are a favourite with my friend Jamie Oliver..."
While the egg curry was tasty, I wouldn't put it at the same level as something that Jamie would endorse - then again, Jamie aint not friend of mine is he...?

Regardless of whether Jamie Oliver likes this dish or not, it is very tasty and very nutritious. I really enjoyed this dish and to me, it's best eaten with rice, although I reckon it would be good with bread too!

Mediterranean Rice Tartelettes - Royal Foodie Joust

It's Royal Foodie Joust time again!! The Royal Foodie Joust is hosted by HRH Jenn, The LeftOver Queen and if you still haven't heard about it or don't know what it is, all I can say is Get With It - this is probably one of the most awesome cyber cooking competitions!

This time around, the ingredients were chosen by the winner of the May Joust - my friend Nuria over at Spanish Recipes and they are:
Bacon
Rice
Tomatoes

Seems quite simple but the difficulty here really is that there are so many options available! My first thought was to make stuffed tomatoes but that would be too simple. Then I thought about a bacon based Briyani but decided that I had already gone along those lines for a previous joust.

What to make, what to make? Then it hit me as I was driving my car.




I remembered a picture I had seen once when I was browsing cookbooks in a bookstore of a tart made with rice. Then I thought of filling the tart with eggplant, mushrooms (gotta have mushrooms!) and bacon and topped off with tomatoes. The picture in my mind looked really good and even though I wasn't quite sure how I would make the tart, I let the picture in my minds eye lead me on!

This is what I did.

Mediterranean Rice Tartelettes - makes 10 tartelettes
Ingredients
1 cup rice
2 eggs - beaten
Salt
8 rashers back bacon - chopped
1 large eggplant - cut into large pieces
3 tomatoes - sliced
2 tsp basil
200g button mushrooms - halved
2 tsp oregano

Method
Cook the rice and let cool. Add in the beaten eggs and mix well ensuring egg is incorporated. Season with salt. Set aside.
Degorge the eggplant by placing the cut pieces in a colander. Sprinkle with salt and let stand for about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, fry bacon till cooked. Set aside
Fry basil and tomatoes together till slightly soft. Set aside
Fry oregano with mushrooms till cooked. Set aside.
Rinse eggplant and then pat dry. Fry till tender. Set aside.

Assembly.
Place rice into tart moulds and bake in a preheated 190C oven for about 15 mins. Place eggplant, then bacon, mushrooms and cover with a slice of tomato. Return to oven and raise temperature to 200C. Bake for another 20 mins. Allow to cool slightly before unmoulding. Garnish with some celery leaves if desired.

The picture I had in my mind had a mushroom half sitting on top of the tomato, but since there was enough mushroom to go into the tarts, I thought it best to keep the mushrooms under wraps!


I was kind of worried as to how to unmould the tartelettes but as they cooled, the tarts pulled in a little and whatever parts remained stuck to the sides were easily removed by sliding a sharp knife in between the mould and the rice. The tarts unmoulded very nicely and kept their shape.

The Lovely Wife had invited her parents over for lunch and so these tartelettes became the appetiser and I had more taste testers that usual. The first tartelette was tasted by The Lovely Wife and she declared it as very good. My son then had a proper tartelette and he enjoyed it immensely. My In-Laws really loved it too and were rather surprised that I had used rice for the tart shell.




I must say that the tartelettes were very delicious too! I think the mix of flavours of tomato, bacon, egpplant and mushrooms complemented each other really well and the rice tart shell gave it a lovely finish. Then again, as Nuria says, anything with Bacon in it is good and I just have to agree with that!



This is definitely something that I will make again although I might vary the fillings. This joust was a lot of fun so thanks once again to Nuria for choosing these great ingredients and of course to Jenn for hosting this great event!

Ratatouille with a fishy twist

One of our dear friends, Priya, who has been vegetarian for a long time has recently taken to eating fish as well. Usually, I would make something vegetarian just for Priya while the rest of us would indulge in meaty goodness. However, this time, I decided to make things a little easier and make one hearty dish filled with loads of veges and throw in some Tuna. A Ratatouille with fish in it!

I also wasn't really too fussed about the main meal simply because this was the same night that I was serving the Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream tested and made for the February DB Challenge that I co-hosted.



As it is, the Fishy Ratatoullie turned out really, really well! This is what i did.

Igredients
2 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
1 tsp Basil
1 tsp oregano
2 eggplants
2 carrots
2 zuchini
2 leek
2 green capsicum
350g Button Mushrooms
4 tomatoes
1 can stewed tomatoes
3 cans tuna chunks
Salt
Black Pepper

Method
Cut all the vegetables into large chunks.
Sautee Onion and garlic till soft. Add in basil and oregano and fry till fragrant. Stir in the egglplant and lightly fry before adding in the rest of the vegetables. Mix together and cook well, seasoning with some salt and pepper. Add in the can of tomatoes, and allow to simmer till everything is cooked. Add in the tuna, taking care not to break it up too much. Mix well, allow to simmer to meld all the flavours and season with more salt and pepper.




I served this with rice and it was a very tasty and hearty meal. The kids loved is as not only had they had watched the Ratatouille Movie but they also love Tom and Jerry (the cartoon). They joked that about how Jerry had cooked the ratatouille together with a fish that Tom had caught. Obviously my warped sense of humour has rubbed off on them!

Creamy Chicken, Brinjal, Mushroom and Spinach Pasta

For some reason, the kids just love their pasta. They can never get enough of it. Each time you ask them what they feel like having for lunch or dinner, their little eyes light up and they request for pasta - more often than not, creamy pasta.

That's just what happened one Saturday when my son Michael had to go to school for a replacement class due to a shchool holiday or event or something or other. The Lovely Wife had arranged to go with one of her friends on a shopping spree or event or something or other. Yes, sometimes I kinda lose the plot of who is going where for what reason. All I knew was that I had to send Mike to school and then take the opportunity to spend some quality time alone with Sarah.

I also had to cook lunch too! So Sarah and I had a fun time shopping for groceries at the local supermarket. I decided to do a simple creamy pasta but one that had a lot of flavour. That basically meant that I had no idea what I wanted to make!

As Sarah and I walked down the aisles, we picked up some Brinjal, some Mushroom (but of course!) and some Spinach. I then decided on some chicken mince simply because I had this idea of a creamy white looking pasta.
This is what I did.

Ingredients
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
300g Mince Chicken
200g white button Mushrooms
1 Brinjal
1 large bunch Fresh Spinach
Milk
2 tsp corn flour - for thickening
Salt
Black Pepper

Method
Chop the garlic and sautee with basil and oregano. Cut mushrooms thinly and dice brinjal. Cook the mince chicken until well done. Add in the mushrooms and brinjals and cook well. Meanwhile wash and clean the spinach. Blanch in hot water and then chop the spinace. Add to chicken mixture. Add in some milk and season with salt and pepper. If required, mix some cornflour with water and add to mixture to thicken it. Serve with your choice of pasta.


Mike was thrilled when I picked him up from school and mentioned that I had cooked lunch. Sarah promptly announced that she helped with the shopping and cooking too! After a quick shower, Michael sat down with Sarah and I for lunch as the Lovely Wife wasn't home yet.

I must say that there's nothing quite as satisfying as seeing two hungry children enjoying their lunch so much!

When the Lovely Wife returned about an hour later, she too wolfed down the pasta as she hadn't been able to have lunch due to having to line up for a long time at the sale. I've never quite figured out the logic of spending half a day at a sale to get a few items that you would not or may not normally buy anyway. But I'll save that argument for another day.


This Pasta Dish is also my entry for Presto Pasta Nights hosted this week by Kate at Thyme for Cooking

Wholemeal Bread Rolls

This Saturday, I woke up with the yearning to bake some bread. Yes, there's nothing wrong with your eyes and neither have you accidentally gone to another blog. It's true. I suddenly felt the need to bake some bread.
The need wasn't to just bake some bread, but to eat some home baked bread too. I think I am finally understanding that home baked bread tastes so much better, even though it takes a whole lot of work. I think all the recent breadmaking has made me yearn to make more bread and better bread.

So anyway, early Saturday morning, I decided I was going to use the leftover Wholemeal flour that I had from the Daring Bakers challenge to make some Wholemeal bread. I had been looking aroung for a few recipes and found one that didn't look too difficult over at cookitsimply.com.
I halved the recipe and decided to make some rolls rather than a full loaf. I must say that after baking bread a few times, I AM finally getting the hang of it and I do know, intuitively, when enough flour and/or water has been added. This time, I think I did a pretty good job and the rolls turned out rather delicious!
I think I may had added a little too much flour this time because the rolls were not as soft inside as I would have liked. Nonetheless, they were still very, very tasty. I paired the bread with some eggplant dip that I made and it was very well received. The eggplant dip was just two eggplants roasted in the oven and then pureed in the food processor with a little garlic, lemon juice, basil and cayenne pepper.


This is the recipe for the Wholemeal Rolls:


4 cups plain white flour
4 cups wholemeal plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon butter
milk

Method
1. Blend the two flours and sift.
2. Add any grist left in sifter to flour.
3. Mix half the flour, the salt and sugar in a warm mixing bowl, stir in yeast.
4. Heat butter or lard with 1 cup water, add remaining water and cool to lukewarm.
5. Add to dry ingredients.
6. Beat 2 minutes on mixer or 300 strokes by hand.
7. Blend in remaining flour and knead to a soft, elastic dough.
8. Allow to double in size, knead, shape and prove a second time.
9. When loaves have risen brush tops with milk and sprinkle on cracked wheat if used.
10. Bake in a moderately hot oven 190-200°C (375-400°F) for 35 to 40 minutes.

Wholemeal bread rolls
1. Divide half the dough into 20 pieces after first proving.
2. Roll each into a ball and place on greased baking trays.
3. Cover and leave in a warm place until doubled in size.
4. Brush with milk and sprinkle with cracked wheat.
5. Bake in a moderately hot oven 190-200°C (375-400°F) for 15 to 20 minutes.
serving amount - makes two loaves

Strangely enough, I had to bake my rolls for about 30 minutes as when I took one out after the allocated time, it was still uncooked inside.
So, it appears that just like with anything, a recipe is NOT foolproof. Oven temperatures differ, flour differs and even environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity seem to make a difference. And I suppose therein lies the secret to making good bread - experience.
I am proud to say that I think I am slowly getting the hang of bread making and am also actually starting to enjoy it.
The best part however was that for the very first time, the lovely wife truly enjoyed my bread. As she devoured the second roll, she smiled at me, battered her eyelids rather coyly and remarked that the rolls were of "restaurant standard!"


Ahhh. One reason less to go out for a meal....!