Another Medieval Syrian Dish! Eggplant, The Third Kind

 I was inspired yet again by Charles Perry's translation of Scents and Flavors.  This time I had two big eggplants that were just asking to be made medieval.

This one, under the category of eggplant dishes, is on page 241 and is recipe #8.90.

The Third Kind

Fry the eggplants in sesame oil, then take the crumb of cold kumāj bread and put it through a sieve.  Mince parsley, mint, and rue -- predominantly parsley -- and rub each herb separately with salt until they wilt.  Rub the bread crumbs with them until mixed and add sesame paste and rub until mixed.  Then put in mixed spices, coriander seeds, caraway, wine vinegar, lemon juice sweetened with sugar, and a little olive oil.  Put the mixture on the eggplants along with a little pounded garlic, which will perfume and enhance the flavor.

My Redaction

1/4 cup fine, soft bread crumbs

1/2 cup minced parsley (measured "fluffy", not compacted)

1/4 cup minced mint (fluffy)

1/8 cup minced rue (fluffy, as much as rue would fluff, anyway)

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon tahini

1 bay leaf

1/5 of a nut of nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon each of ginger, black pepper, cardamom, mace, caraway seed, ground coriander

dash of cloves

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon sugar

drizzle of olive oil

1/2 clove garlic, peeled

2 large eggplants, sliced and ends removed

sesame oil, about 1 cup for frying

My Notes

Kumāj bread is listed as "a thick flatbread of Turkish origin, cooked in a pan set on embers." (page 290).  I didn't have this, so I used a whole wheat bagel.  I broke the bagel in half, then tore up one half into small pieces.  I then rubbed it through a wire sieve until I got a lovely pile of crumbs.

I did not fry the eggplant first.  The sauce looked complicated so I decided to tackle it first.  

Notice there are no quantities listed for the sauce ingredients.  I had to wing it!  I tried to keep in mind that I needed enough of a flavorful sauce to put on the two big eggplants (I decided not to use the small eggplants, even though they were from my garden), but I didn't want to make a huge amount.

I started with the herbs.  First I minced them and then guessed at the proportions:  one part rue to two parts mint to three parts parsley.  This made it "predominantly parsley" while hopefully allowing the flavor of rue to enter without the bitterness being too strong.  When I estimated their quantities, they were "fluffy" measurements -- the minced herbs were not packed down at all.

I have never before rubbed herbs with salt to make them wilt.  I wasn't quite sure what changes to expect.  So I sprinkled them and rubbed and also used at pestle to pound them a little.  I'm not sure I saw much of a difference, but this is where I stopped:

I put in a little scoop of bread crumbs and mixed those in with a spoon.  Then the tahini.  

The spice list was really long!  On page 41, there is a list of what constitutes "mixed spices", so I chose what I had from there.  Everything was supposed to be pounded separately, but have you ever tried powdering a bay leaf by itself in a mortar?  It wasn't going to happen.

I tried putting a piece of nutmeg in with it, hoping that pounding them together would break up the leaf.

Nope, that strategy didn't work.  The nutmeg went to powder and the leaf stayed about the same.  So I put all the spices into the mortar (pounded or not) and started pounding.

After a lot of it was powdered, I sifted the fine spices into the herb mix and returned the chunks to the mortar and kept pounding.  This worked really well to reduce the bay leaf to powder.

Next up:  the liquids.  I decided that the primary flavor should be from the white wine vinegar, with the lemon and sugar to balance out the sweet-sour blend.  I also included just a drizzle of olive oil.

It took several adjustments to get it right.  At first the texture was a damp paste that tasted really good!

But I really wanted a spreadable, wet sauce, so I kept adding vinegar and lemon and sugar until I got this:

I decided to pound the garlic in the mortar and add it directly to the sauce.

Then I began to fry the eggplant.  The slices were about 1/2 inch thick.  The pan was heated to medium, I put in some sesame oil, and added the eggplant.  They soaked the oil up like sponges!  I had to keep adding oil until they stopped drying the pan out and then the slices actually cooked in the oil.

It took two large fry pans to cook all the eggplant in a timely manner.  

As the slices cooked to browned and tender all the way through, even at the edges, I moved them to a platter and spread a little of the sauce over them.  

They stacked nicely and looked good when they were all cooked.  I ran out of sauce with one slice left.

The Verdict

I served it with a pine nut couscous and apple slices.

The eggplant was really good!  The sauce was spicy, tingling on the tongue, bright in flavor, and well-balanced between sweet and sour.

My guest taster and I agreed that the sauce made the dish exciting.  We tasted the eggplant without the sauce and liked it, but with the sauce, it was just that much better.

The sesame oil made it rich, the eggplant added body and moisture, and the sauce added a zing.  

I couldn't really taste all the spices and I couldn't really tell that there was specifically vinegar and lemon juice in it, but overall, it had the sour and the spicy and the mint.  We loved it and ate most of it.

Success!

I honestly think it would be hard to mess this sauce up.  I just guessed at the amounts and it all came together.  Even if you put in too much of one ingredient, you have opportunities to balance it out with some of the other ingredients.  

I'm really glad I made it as liquid as I did.  That made it easy to scoop a little in a spoon, drop it onto a slice, and then spread it over the slice.  It helped me portion it out over most of the slices.  Although having some extra sauce would not be a problem!