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

Cut the two eggplants lengthwise into 1 cm thick  strips. Don’t make them too thin or else they’ll fall apart after frying. In a cast iron skillet, fry up the eggplant until lightly brown and plant on a cookie sheet (preferably one with sides so the oil doesn’t drip off). You can soak up the excess oil with paper towels if you want.

Once all the eggplants are fried and on the cookie sheet, put in your cubed onion in the skillet and add any olive oil, if there’s none left. Cook the onions on medium until they slightly caramelize. Turn the heat to low and add your diced tomatoes and add your salt and pepper. Make sure you put a good amount of salt as it really brings out the flavor of the tomatoes. Add the parsley and chopped banana peppers last after a few minutes of cooking the tomatoes. The reason for adding the peppers and parsley last is to preserve their texture and distinct taste. Cooking them into the mix longer would blend the flavor instead.

The vegetables should be very slightly under-cooked

If you want, you can salt the top of the eggplants which will help the vegetables stick to the top of the eggplant better. Put a tiny bit of shredded cheddar cheese on top of the eggplants. This will help the vegetables stick to the eggplant. When the vegetables in the skillet are almost ready, put spoonfuls on top of the eggplants. Put some more cheddar cheese on top of the vegetables to seal them all up together. Next add parmesan cheese for added texture. Then put one half moon tomato on top of each eggplant

What it should look like right before the half moon tomatoes go on

Put the oven on 400F and cook for about 20 minutes. When the skin of half moon tomatoes are slightly curled, they’re done!

You can serve them in a number of ways including on top of rice, individually, or with plain yogurt.

You can also serve them on top of brown rice

 Let me know if you end up trying this. I want to see if there’s a better way to make it!

Recipe: Open Faced Eggplant Cutlets is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

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Ingredients:
———- 

2-3 kilo pork
2 kilo sour cabbage
3 onions
2 quarts sour cream
salt & pepper
1/2 cup Sweet Hungarian paprika

Optional:
Caraway Seeds
Bay leaves 

To Prepare:
———-

Sour Cream Cabbage Soup

In a 10 liter “thing” boil 3 kg of sour cabbage (sauerkraut works well).
Half rinse the sauerkraut (to make less sour). Cut 2-3kg pork (leg or shoulder) into cubes and separately cook 3 onions in oil until caramelized. Add the salt, pepper and red paprika (Hungarian Paprika works best and is not spicy) and pork. Put a little bit of water to ease stiring and keep from charring the ingredients. Lightly cook the pork. The mixture should be thick and red. Cook slowly to infuse the flavors into the meat.

When nearly finished cooking, mix in the cabbage and fill with enough water. Cook the soup on low heat, the longer the better as the meat will soften. This will also prevent the cabbage from over cooking. Add the sour cream** and turn the heat even lower as you don’t want to cook the cream.

If my English didn’t make sense, or if you prefer, the original Hungarian:

Tejfölös káposzta,

10l fazekba kb. 3 kg savanyú káposztát feltenni fozni, félig tenni csak vízzel. 2-3 kg sertéshús combot vagy lapockát összevágjuk kockákra és külön megsütjuk: 2-3 hagymár olajon megpiritunk, ha kész beletesszuk az összevágott húst erre sót, borsot pirospaprikát. Felöntjuk egy kevés vízzel és sutjuk.

 Mikor már majdnem kész beleöntjuk a káposztába. Ha a hus teljesen megpuhult, ontunk rá bkét tejfolt.

**Hungarian sour cream (tejföl) is not sour at all and is different from American sour cream. It’s instead a heavy solidified cream (same consistency as sour cream, just not as sour or salty). We used organic sour cream as the differences are very slight.

Recipe: Tejfölös Káposzta (Sour Cream Cabbage Soup) is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

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