Imam Bayildi - Turkish Cuisine

Imam Bayildi is a vegetarian delicacy par excellence, a symbol of Turkish cuisine. It is not known with certainty the origin of its name but there are at least three alternatives that would suggest the imam fainted at the sight of the food. First, they would have seen the price of ingredients used, second, because he saw the amount of oil used and the third, and probably the closest to reality, because it would have been very pleased with the taste of these stuffed eggplant.

Ingredients:

• 4 small eggplants
• 200 ml olive oil 
• 1 large onion
• 1 red pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 4 tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of cumin
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• pepper and salt

Preparation:

1. Heat the oven to 140 degrees Celsius.
2. Peel and chop the onion. Peel the cloves and chop them finely.
3. Remove the seeds and cut the peppers into squares.
4. Chop the  tomatoes into cubes.
5. Place the eggplants on a tray and cut a lid on the eggplant's side. Remove a part of the core of the eggplant. Dice half of the eggplant pulp. The rest you can use for something else.
6. Sprinkle some salt inside the eggplants.
7. Heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan.
8. Add onion and garlic and sauté until onions are glassy.
9. Add the peppers, the eggplant's core and after 2 minutes, sugar, cinnamon and cumin. Mix well.
10. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste and a glass of water.
11. Keep 10 minutes on medium flame.
12. Fill the 4 eggplants with the vegetable mixture. But after you drain the liquid formed inside the eggplants.
13. Pour the remaining olive oil over and insert it in the oven for 35-45 minutes until eggplants have softened and vegetables are browned.

Imam bayildi served as an appetizer or as a main course, warm but mostly cold.

Enjoy!