Imam Bayildi
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The Tale of Imam Bayildi
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This braised, olive-oil-stuffed eggplant dish comes from Ottoman-era cuisine, and its name ("the imam fainted") inspired a well-known but almost certainly apocryphal legend about a swooning imam, whether from delight or shock at the amount of olive oil used. The true origin is undocumented, but it remains a classic of Turkish and Ottoman cooking.
Ingredients
Scale:· 4 servings
- 4 medium eggplants
- 3 onions, thinly sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tomatoes, diced
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- Fresh parsley, chopped
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- 1Peel eggplants in stripes, slit lengthwise, and salt generously; let sit 30 minutes then rinse and pat dry.
- 2Fry the eggplants in olive oil until softened and lightly browned, then set aside.
- 3In the same pan, sauté onions, garlic, and green pepper until soft.
- 4Add tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, salt, and pepper, and cook 10 minutes into a thick sauce.
- 5Stuff the slit eggplants with the onion-tomato mixture and arrange in a baking dish.
- 6Add a splash of water to the dish, cover, and bake at 350°F for 30-35 minutes until very tender.
- 7Serve at room temperature garnished with parsley.
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