Recipe: Open Faced Eggplant Cutlets
My friend from Iran just finished his PhD. To celebrate, his wife threw him a party. Looking for any reason to cook, I wanted to try a Turkish dish and bring it to the party.
The original recipe was called Stuffed Eggplants (Karniyarik, which means “split belly” in Turkish). Unfortunately it needed several tiny eggplants and here in America, there are only American eggplants, which are of course, American sized. Also, the recipe called for ground meat. I neglected to buy any and I don’t usually have any in stock anyway, so we altered the recipe.
Another friend from Iran came and helped me with it and she was a big help. It’s nice to cook with someone who actually knows what they’re doing. You can look up the recipe for Karniyarik, so I’ll provide the one we made up here. It might have a name, I can’t imagine this combination hasn’t been tried before. If not, I’d like to dub it a Turkish/Iranian/Hungarian dish.
Open Faced Eggplant Cutlets
2 Large American Eggplants
Mild cheddar cheese, shredded
Parmesan cheese
1 White onion cubed
Parsley (fresh is best)
1 tomato, diced
1 tomato, sliced into thin half moons
Green banana peppers (one or two should do it)
Ground Pepper/Sea Salt
Olive Oil

