The Priest Has Fainted.

Fresh Eggplant with Herbs

Aubergine or Eggplant is the summer vegetable which is excellent for cooking vegetarian dishes, it has beautiful colour from creamy white, soft green to purple. I love the royal purple colour and its deliciousness. There are legendary tales regarding this beautiful vegetable, such as Aubergine Imam Baaldi, Pope's Aubergine.
Now is early autumn, but I saw a lot of them in the market at a low price, I think it is time to buy and preserve them,  I made a spicy dish Brinjal Bhartha or Baingan Bhartha which will be a treat for me If I long for Indian food.  Aubergine is a very precious vegetable to cook when you do it right.  There are techniques regarding the preparation and cooking the aubergines.

Brinjal Bhartha

A lot can be done with aubergines, it seems every country has its own way of cooking.  Using herbs, and spices are the key to my cooking with aubergine.
In my kitchen, cooking eggplant (aubergine), It is eggplant to me.
For a quick meal and serve on the day is simply diced and fried or sliced and poached.  Diced eggplant, fried in oil with chilli and other spices is excellent to served with steamed rice or serve it as topping for toasted bread.  Sliced eggplants poached in coconut milk with hot spices and cook until soft, is delicious to serve with rice too.  And more, I would crumb the slices eggplants and fry them to accompany meat dishes and garnished with potatoes.  And of course you could add in the ratatouille, what would you do if you don't have the eggplants for cooking the dish, it does not taste the same.
Baked stuffed eggplants with Fetta cheese and herbs worked very well and served it with fresh salad, and bread.

The preparation of the stuffed eggplant was so quick and straightforward, simply cut along the centre, but don't cut it through.  Stuff it with full cream Fetta cheese and dried oregano, salt and thyme,
Brush or drizzle with oil before baking, and bake in a hot oven for 25 minutes or until soft.
Serve hot or warm with a fresh green salad for the garnish.

Another beautiful dish using aubergine is the inferior man caviar.  It is a smooth pureed of baked aubergine flavoured with herbs, olive oil and lemon juice.  Serve as a dip, or you could use it as a spread.  Recipe: look at the older post. To search,  Type: Poor Man Caviar

Now I like to try the Turkish cookery.  Aubergine is one of the vegetables which grows over there, and the dish Aubergine Imam Baaldi is one of the Turkish contributions to the world.
I used a large eggplant, but you could use smallish eggplants.

The Recipe
A Large and fresh aubergine, slit it along the entire length without peeling
Scoop out some of the pulp, set aside.
The filling:
1/4 cup of oil
Aubergine pulps, tomatoes, onions, and currents
Sautee this mixed vegetable and currents in oil until soft
Fill the aubergines with the filling.
Put them onto earthware dish or a pot and pour in some oil to cover them completely.  Add thyme and bay leaf.  Bake in a medium-low heat oven until the aubergines are soft about two hours. Leaf to cool.
This dish should be served very cold.  Prepare it the day before it is required, to allow the aubergines to be well saturated in oil.
Imam Baaldi in Turkish means ' the priest has fainted.' 
The legend goes that when aubergines prepared in this way were offered to a particular imam (priest), he was so moved by the fragrant odour of the dish that he fainted from sheer gastronomical joy.
(Based on New Larousse Gastronomique)

Cooking the Imam Baaldi in my Kitchen.

A large aubergine, cut into two.

Scoop  some of the pulp

Cooking for the Filling

Fill the aubergine with the filling, place it in a pot.  Add-in with a lot of oil, to cover completely.  Bake it on a low temperature for two hours.

The Aubergine Imam Baaldi is cooked, soft, creamy and very delicious.

The Imam Baaldi freshly baked

I served the Imam Baaldi with rice and a green salad with figs, and it is delicious to be served simply with bread. But Turkish pide filled with cheese and tomato is excellent to go with the dish.

Green salad with figs

Imam Baaldi on a Serving Dish
Garnished with Fresh Herbs

If you think eggplant or aubergine is a second-rate vegetable, you may have to think twice.  It makes a famous dish at your dinner party, such as the Pope's Aubergines.

What is it?    Pope's Aubergines is a Provencal aubergine flan which legend tells was created especially for one of the popes of Avignon.  It is glorious in flavour, clerical in looks with its sombre base crowned with a golden crust of cheese, the whole surrounded by a scarlet tomato sauce. (Simple French Cuisine by Jenny Baker).

Have fun to try cooking Aubergine Imam Baaldi (the priest has fainted), well I loved it.

Thanks to Aubergine-Eggplant, I had so much fun to cook and enjoyed the dish; also, it is good to know the legendary tales of Aubergine Iman Baaldi.  Ridiculously funny, so humorous!

The origin of the name: The name supposedly derives from a tale of a Turkish imam, who swooned with pleasure at the flavour when presented with this dish by his wife, although other more humorous accounts suggest that he fainted upon hearing the cost of the ingredients or the amount of oil used to cook the dish. [5]
Another folktale related that an imam married the daughter of an olive oil merchant.  Her dowry consisted of twelve jars of the most excellent olive oil, with which she prepared each evening an eggplant dish with tomatoes and onions. On the thirteenth day, there was no eggplant dish at the table.  When informed that there was no more olive oil, the imam fainted.[6]  (Wikipedia)


The day I served my cooking the stuffed eggplant,  my family did not faint, they were in silent instead, as they were enjoying the delicious dish.  It's very pleasing.



Until Next Post
Susy