Georgian Eggplants - general principles and methods of cooking
In Georgian cuisine, eggplant is given a place of honor, and there are countless ways to cook them. They are fried, baked, pickled, stewed or salted. Cooked separately, with garlic and nuts, and in combination with other vegetables or meat. Very often, white wine vinegar and garlic are added to the eggplant appetizers, which give them a piquant and spicy taste.
It is difficult to imagine Georgian cuisine without an abundance of greenery. Cilantro, basil, green onions, parsley are present in almost every dish made from eggplants, which give the food a unique taste, additionally enriching it with vitamins and beneficial microelements.
Not the last place in Georgian cuisine is occupied by nuts. The favorites of which are undoubtedly walnuts. With them are preparing numerous sauces and seasonings, which are perfectly combined with meat, fish and vegetables. Especially often add nuts to eggplants, in the form of the crushed weight with greens and garlic.
Georgian Eggplant - the best recipes
Recipe 1: Buglama with Georgian Eggplants
This is a delicious Georgian national dish, although its variety can be found in other oriental cuisines, for example, Azerbaijan. It is easy to prepare in the sense that it is not necessary to stand over it and constantly stir. Vegetables need only be cut and folded in a bowl. While they are cooking on the stove, you can do other things. Buglama belongs to the first dishes, but it is prepared with the addition of a small amount of water. It can be cooked on the stove in a cauldron or oven in portion pots. The recipe includes uchi-suneli - these are ground into powder blue fenugreek seeds, which bring a touch of light and pleasant nutty flavor to the dish. If you do not find ucho-suneli, add any other spices at your discretion. It’s not exactly that, but still better than nothing.
Ingredients: 4 pcs. fairly large eggplants and potatoes, 600 g of meat (lamb or any other), 2 pcs. Bulgarian pepper, tomatoes and onions, 1 piece of carrot and bitter pepper, cilantro, dill and basil (or another, to your taste), 3 cloves of garlic, salt, utsho-suneli. Method of preparation
Put in the cauldron the first layer of meat, cut into small pieces, on top - slices of potatoes. The next layer is eggplant, cut into circles. Sprinkle with salt. Next alternately lay the onion half rings, salt, cups (or cubes) of tomatoes, grated carrots, Bulgarian pepper, cut into slices or straws.
Pour 2 cups of broth or water into a cauldron with vegetables and meat, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about two hours with the lid closed.
10 minutes before the end of cooking, add the chocolates, chopped garlic and herbs, if necessary, add some salt and add the chopped hot pepper. Buglama served hot.
Recipe 2: Georgian Eggplants
This dish is prepared on the basis of baked eggplants, so it is important to choose large-sized fruits, but not overripe. Large, because when baking eggplants are greatly reduced in size, and it is important that in the end there are not only the skin and tails, but also a lot of tasty pulp.
Ingredients: 2 large eggplants, 1 onion, 150g walnuts, peeled from the shell, 3 medium cloves of garlic, green cilantro and parsley, juice of small lemon, half a spoonful of spices - basil and hops-suneli, to taste spicy ground pepper and salt, a pinch of sugar, pomegranate grains.
Preparation Method:
Baked whole eggplant fruits in the oven (200C) for about 40-45 minutes until soft. Cool, peel, chop the flesh with a knife.
Finely chop the onion, chop the garlic (on the track or with garlic extractor). Add lemon juice, mix all spices, together with sugar and salt.
Grind walnuts in a mortar, blender or meat grinder. All ingredients are thoroughly mixed together and put in a fridge for a day. Of course, you can eat right away, but if the dish is drawn, it acquires a special and unique taste. Therefore, it is better to suffer a little, at least 12 hours. Before serving, sprinkle generously with pomegranate seeds.
Recipe 3: Ajapsandal - Georgian Eggplant Stew
To make it clearer what this dish is, you need to find out what the word “ajapsandal” means. In a figurative sense, it implies a mixture of a large number of ingredients, objects. In Russian there is a similar definition - “vinaigrette”. That is why in this dish, depending on the specific recipe, many different vegetables can be mixed - tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, onions, bell peppers, carrots, but eggplants are the main product. Those. on one part of them take half, or even a third part of the remaining products.
Ingredients: eggplants - 1 kg, half a kilogram of bell pepper and tomatoes, 250 g of green beans, onions and carrots, 1 bunch of cilantro, parsley and basil, pepper and salt to taste, a pinch of saffron and ground coriander , vegetable oil - half a cup, 1 pod of chili (bitter pepper), 4 cloves of garlic, 1 bay leaf.
Method of preparation
Onions cut into small cubes, pepper in strips, eggplant on the circles (or halves of circles), coarsely grate the carrots.
Eggplants fry, (do not need to be cleaned, but soak in salt water before frying will not be superfluous), put into a colander to allow the oil to drain. In the same pan, spasserovat onions, add peppers and carrots, fry everything together for 10 minutes, then shift the vegetables to the eggplants.
Cut the tails of the beans, break each pod with your hands into 2 or 3 parts, boil in water until half cooked, fold into a colander. Remove the skin from the tomatoes, after boiling them with boiling water, then chop.
Grind garlic with cilantro in a mortar and mix with tomatoes. Chop the remaining greens with a knife, finely chop the chillies, removing seeds from them. Send the whole vegetable cut to the cauldron for eggplants, as well as bay leaf with spices and salt. Stir and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes.
Recipe 4: Georgian Eggplant
Eggplant with peanut sauce is an original Georgian snack. She is a constant attribute of any holiday feast. It is easy to cook, and it is tasty to eat. Try it.
Ingredients: 4 eggplants, 150 g of walnuts (peeled), 1 bunch of parsley and cilantro, 1-2 medium onions, 3 cloves of garlic, a pinch of ground chili pepper and coriander, salt, white wine vinegar (Apple can) - 3 tbsp, vegetable oil. Method of preparation
Eggplant cut into longitudinal slices, tongues, put in salted water for half an hour. Then dry (squeeze) and fry in oil.
For the filling: chop the nuts (in a mortar, through a meat grinder or in a blender), add to them finely chopped greens, salt, pour vinegar, add spices and squeeze garlic. Mix thoroughly.
On hot eggplant slices put a spoonful of the filling and double down. Onions cut into thin rings. Put the eggplants with nuts on the tray, shifting each roll with a ring of onions. Now they let them cool down and stand for some time to soak. Before serving, you can decorate the snack with pomegranate seeds and parsley leaves.
You can cut the eggplants not with longitudinal tongues, but with transverse circles. Then the stuffing should be placed between two fried circles, and on top lay the onion ring.
Georgian Eggplants - useful tips from experienced chefs
Relaxing in nature, try to cook a kebab in one of the recipes of Georgian cuisine. Mtsvadi - this kebab in eggplant. For one serving you will need 1 eggplant and 150-200g of meat (in the original lamb, but you can also pork or poultry). Cut the eggplant lengthwise, put the pieces of meat (salted and peppered) into the cut and strung it on the skewer so as to pierce all the pieces and the eggplant itself at both ends. Fry over the coals until readiness as a usual shish kebab, periodically greasing the eggplant and meat with vegetable oil.
