Imam Bayildi – Stuffed Eggplant Recipe with Tomatoes

Name: Imam Bayildi – Stuffed Eggplant Recipe with Tomatoes
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 1
Cuisine: Middle Eastern
Ingredients: Medium eggplants 3; Bell pepper 1; Onions 2; Garlic 2-3 cloves; Tomatoes 2; Tomato paste 1 tbsp; Spices: coriander, black pepper, nutmeg, salt, sugar, lemon juice to taste; Olive oil 3-4 tbsp

The East is a delicate matter! © Comrade Sukhov

We have learned to cook a delicious Middle Eastern dish – imam bayildi.

After a first trip to a Middle Eastern country, what probably stays in the memory forever is the exquisite and incredibly tasty works of culinary art. Pilaf, shurpa, halva, sweets of every imaginable kind, shashlik. Sometimes I dream about it all.

No wonder a huge number of Middle Eastern recipes spread around the world long ago and became part of other national cuisines. The eggplant dish called imam bayildi is no exception.

In ancient times people began to cultivate wild vegetables. But since most of them are rather unpleasant to eat raw, they had to be fried, boiled and salted.

And given that eating, say, boiled onion is pretty nasty (for some), people started combining things. And so, a very long time ago, they put together the ingredients of a stunning vegetable dish. They say the first to taste it was a spiritual leader of the Muslims, an imam, and having tasted it, he fainted with an astonished look on his face, overwhelmed by the flavour of the new dish, which is built around eggplants baked with tomato.

And so the dish was named Imam Bayildi, which in Turkish means “the imam fainted”

In Italy there is a thing called antipasti. Everyone knows what pasta is. In short, it is noodles with seasoning and sauce. It is usually served before the main course. That is the custom. But antipasti is by no means “against” pasta, that is, it does not cancel it. It means “before the pasta”. Something to whet the appetite. Antipasti is usually something a little spicy and in a small amount, so that there is room left for the main course. You may be offered sun-dried tomatoes with olive oil and garlic, a spicy vegetable stew, or hot or sweet peppers stuffed with feta cheese.

The Greeks often offer a shot of ouzo and an appetizer of fried vegetables or feta to whet the appetite.
It is cooked in different ways, but the set of ingredients is the same, with slight variations.

Given that eggplants were domesticated 15 centuries ago, and the tomato was brought to Europe from America by the “Columbuses”, I suspect that 1000 years ago the imam fainted over a somewhat different dish. But the essence of imam bayildi seems to have survived.

Ingredients

servings

Medium eggplants 3
Bell pepper 1
Onions 2
Garlic 2-3 cloves
Tomatoes 2
Tomato paste 1 tbsp
Spices: coriander, black pepper, nutmeg, salt, sugar, lemon juice to taste
Olive oil 3-4 tbsp

Step-by-step recipe

Classic Middle Eastern recipes usually call for sun-dried tomatoes. Since they are not very popular here, sun-dried tomatoes are most often left out and replaced with tomato paste. But if you really want them, sun-dried tomatoes are easy to make at home. You can do it in the oven, or even more simply in the microwave. Cut the tomatoes into 8 wedges, remove the seeds and the green core. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Brush with olive oil and put in the microwave on full power. It takes up to 10 minutes, until most of the moisture has cooked out of the tomato wedges.
The rest is simple. Peel and wash the onions, garlic and pepper, and remove everything unwanted and inedible. If you have decided not to make sun-dried tomatoes, scald the fresh tomatoes, peel them and remove the seeds. Chop the flesh finely.
Chop the onions finely and fry in olive oil until soft. Add the finely chopped bell pepper and the garlic crushed with a pinch of salt, 1 tbsp of tomato paste and the tomato flesh (or the prepared sun-dried tomatoes). Add spices to taste, 1 tsp of sugar and 0.5 tsp of lemon juice (or wine vinegar).
If needed, you can add a little water or (as a friend of mine does) good tomato juice. Simmer everything under a lid for 15 minutes. This gives you the tomato filling for stuffing. The filling should be fairly thick, like homemade sour cream.
Take the filling off the heat.
In Turkey I ate imam bayildi as a casserole: vegetables cut into rounds, everything covered with the tomato filling and baked. In Egypt I tried another version, a stuffed eggplant. It is all the same, except that the eggplant is prepared: the skin is cut off in strips and the filling is placed into a hollow made in it. Both versions are incredibly tasty and special. Here the version with whole eggplants has caught on more.
Wash the medium eggplants and wipe them dry. Make a deep lengthwise cut, 2/3 of the way through, and scoop out all the seeds and flesh with a teaspoon. With the tip of a knife, remove the skin in strips along the eggplant. Or simply score it lengthwise, so that you do not have to cut through the skin in the finished dish.
Do you need to draw out the bitterness with salt, as nearly every book and tip says? I have not come across a bitter eggplant for a long time. So it is up to you.
Brush the eggplants with olive oil, just a little. Stuff them with the tomato mixture. Place the vegetables on an oiled plate or baking dish.
Put the dish in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or simply in the microwave for 15 minutes.
To keep the green stem on the eggplants, wrap it in a small piece of foil.
Serve the vegetable dish hot, straight from the oven. Boiled new potatoes make an excellent side.
One last thing: you can also add chopped herbs and more grated nutmeg to the tomato filling for imam bayildi — many people like it that way