Persian Eggplant Stew

I got a cookbook from friends, "A Taste of Persia", by Najmieh K. Batmanglij, for my birthday this year. I just tried my first recipe out of it and omfg, it turned out very good, so I thought I'd share it.

I didn't stick entirely to the recipe due to not having the exact ingredients and seeing it made with slight variations previously, as will be explained below. This dish is a good introduction to Persian cooking and in spite of an hour and a half minimum cooking time, fairly simple to make.

The Persian name for it is given as Khoresh-e bademjan, literally, stew of eggplant. It's got a citrusy tomato base, the eggplant ends up very soft and savory, and it's been one of my favorites since the first time I tasted it years ago.

Equipment you will use: Both rangetop and oven. Two medium saucepans, a large skillet and a deep, covered baking dish ... or ... a roomy dutch oven, a skillet and a medium saucepan. Measuring spoons.

Extras: Rice - this dish is meant to be served over rice, so depending on the type you'd like to have, start making a pan of rice right around the time everything else goes in the oven. Dried lime - if there's an international grocery near you, you might be able to find a bag of dried limes, (the ones I found came from Mexico, so you don't necessarily need to have a Middle Eastern grocery nearby) as a substitute for either lime juice or the unripe grapes, which last I've never found anywhere. Saffron - this spice is a near constant in Persian cooking, and usually pricey, but you can often find a good deal on it at an international grocery store. Garlic - as I've mentioned before, you can get huge jars of crushed garlic at an international grocery for a good price, saves a lot of hassle and can last a while even if you use as much garlic as we do. Turmeric - this spice seems to be widely available and is a bright orange-yellow color, it's a common ingredient in curries and is one of the very few traditional remedies proven to have positive health effects.

Meat: While the recipe calls for meat, that's easily optional. This dish is very much about the vegetable flavors and textures and would be plenty delicious without it.

Ingredients: In plain font below are the ingredients listed in the book. Substitutions or additions I used are in italics.

• 5 tablespoons (tbsp) vegetable oil, butter or ghee
• 3 small onions, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed - or - 2 teaspoons (tsp) crushed garlic
• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken or meat (lamb, veal, beef), cut into thin strips
• 1 tsp salt - or - I found a 1/2 tsp sufficient
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper - or - 1/2 tsp of mombasa hot pepper, a specialty of the herb sellers at the local farmers market, though next time I might halve this amount
• 1/2 tsp ground saffron threads, dissolved in 4 tbsp of hot water - or - about a 1/2 tsp of unground, very loosely packed saffron threads dropped in a dish with 4 tbsp of hot water and stirred, which seemed to work just fine and used a far more reasonable amount
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 3 cups fresh or canned pureed tomatoes (about 6 tomatoes) - or - I had 4 tomatoes and a 15 oz. can of plain tomato sauce, to which I added about half the can again of plain water to make sure there was enough liquid
• 1 cup of unripe grapes or 4 tbsp of lime juice - or - one dried lime, rinsed off and added whole with the tomatoes, and simply left to float on top of the stew while cooking and baking. Do not eat.
• 3 medium eggplants (about 2 pounds), peeled and sliced - or - I had 6 mini eggplants, 2 zucchini squash, and a large russet potato

2 egg whites, lightly beaten - or - the instructions say these can be brushed over the vegetables to cut down on oil in the sauteeing process, but I didn't bother with this

The first step is to stir-fry the onions in some oil in one of the saucepans (preferably one that has a well-fitting cover) for about 5 minutes, by which point they should start looking a little see-through. I started this part off in the dutch oven that I later just put in the oven to bake. Here, you add the garlic and meat, then continue to stir-fry for another 15 minutes. Add all the remaining spices, including the saffron and the hot water it's been soaking in.

At every stage where you're cooking uncovered on the range top, stir the food regularly to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pans. If something sticks, it'll burn.

Add the chopped tomatoes, and/or pureed tomatoes, and the lime. Here's also where I added the extra water and made sure that everything was well-stirred before the next step, turning the heat down to low and simmering covered for 15 minutes.

Depending on how long your oven takes to get going, you might want to start pre-heating it to 350 degrees Fahrenheit right about now. This is also when you want to start thinking about cooking your rice so it's done about when the stew is finished.

While that's going on, add the rest of the oil to the skillet and fry up the eggplant and other vegetables for about 10 minutes or until they're starting to turn golden-brown. While we had a potato and zucchini, which I've had in this stew before, carrots are also very good if you don't have enough eggplant or would just prefer a wider mix of vegetables.

When the covered simmering is done, add the meat and sauce to a deep, covered baking dish. Lay the sauteed eggplant and vegetables over the top. Cover and put in the oven to bake for 30 minutes. Then remove the cover, and bake for another 15 minutes uncovered.

Serve. Eat.

The recipe included something about a garnish, but if you want to know about that bit, I recommend the book. It seems to have all my favorites in it and I found the instructions very easy to follow.

In general, Persian cooking is more savory and less spicy hot than Indian food, but is similar in the theme of mostly vegetable stews over rice and vegetable or fruit accented rice dishes. There are also the kebabs, and the delightful habit of spicing things with powdered sumac as reflexively as westerners use salt or pepper at the table. It's a healthful and delicious cuisine that should please even the most conventional American palate.