İmam Bayıldı - The Imam Passed Out!

There are two reasons given as to why the poor old Imam passed out.

The first is more or less obvious: He ate so many of these in a row that he had no choice but to pass out!

The second is that he was a curmudgeonly old miser who passed out when he found out how much olive oil had been used in the preparation of the dish. Which could be true since this is a dish that just soaks up oil. First off, there is all the oil that is used for frying the whole eggplants. But then, on top of that, there is also all the oil that is used for the filling. The recipe below says 100ml. I would need to measure that out to see how much it is but somehow I have an idea that even more might be needed. Enough to make a miser pass out anyway. You could conceivably get away with any old vegetable oil for frying the eggplants but the filling will need the real thing - and that, even here in a country of olive oil, is rather expensive. :-D

Other than that, Imam Bayıldı is eaten at room temparature as a main dish, usually for lunch, accompanied by Turkish style tomato pilaf; and it is served as meze (tapas) at an evening Rakı Table as well.


INGREDIENTS
  • 5 eggplant
  • 2-3 onions
  • 7-8 cloves garlic
  • 3-4 tomatoes
  • 4 peppers
  • 100 ml olive oil
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 400 ml hot water
  • vegetable oil, for frying

INSTRUCTIONS
  • Peel the skill off the eggplants lengthwise and in stripes, leaving some stripes of skin. Let these rest in salty water for about half an hour to draw out the bitterness. Dry them off and fry them in oil until the flesh changes to a golden color.
  • For the filling chop, the onions, peppers and garlic as fine as possible and sautét hem in olive oil until they have softened. Peel and finely chop the tomatoesand add them to the onion mixture together with the seasoning. Cook for about10 minutes and turn off the heat.
  • Use a fork to carefully slice open the eggplants to avoid damaging the sides of the eggplants. Fill the eggplants with the sautéed vegetable mixture. Place them back in the frying pan and pour a little hot water over the eggplants. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low and cover with a lid for 20 minutes.
  • Once done, the imam bayıldı can be served warm or cold.


Shamelessly filched from: 
Thank you Dishes Origin! :-)

Images: Unsplash, Pexels and Freepik.


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