Turkish? Sicilian? It's just GOOD: Tasty Eggplant dip

Ragazzi, when you cook cross culturally, you sometimes find yourself wondering:  "where did this originate," or  "where is this from," some variation on that.  Annalena finds herself wondering that a lot.  She also wonders how two places, so close to each other geographically, can show such true distinctions, in their food.  This eggplant "dip," which is a name that does not do it justice, is such a recipe.  

Annalena need not tell you that eggplant is a core ingredient to Italian cooking:  even moreso, to Sicilian cooking.  Her pal Annalisa said to her, during Annalisa's wonderful, indispensable cooking class  "I cannot cook without eggplant. "  And Annalena gets it. 

But eggplant is all over the mideast - and Sicily, ragazzi - is arguably in the mideast.  But it is also all over the Mediterranean.  So, when you see an eggplant dish, how do you know who should claim it?  What else goes into it, can help, but not always.  For example, olives with eggplant "read" as caponata to Annalena, and are Italian.  But not all of her caponata recipes have olives in them.  Combine the stuff with zucchini, and she thinks ratatouille and France.  Until she thinks of Imam bayldi, " the wonderful Turkish dish, which has squash in it.  So how do we know? 

This one, ragazzi, says Turkish for one ingredient only:  the pomegranate molasses.  Now, pomegranates are all over Sicily:  and no one uses a concentrate.  They are all over Palestine, and Israel, and no one uses them.  Annalena is not sure about Syria or Iran, but she has never heard of dishes with the molasses.  So.. she concludes Turkish.  And she also concludes, it's good.  And fast.  And easy.  So, why are we waiting? Let's take David Tanis' recipe, and make it. 

We start with two pounds of eggplant.  Now, which ones?  You DID know that you have many varieties of eggplant to choose from, didn't you?  This one is to be made with "Mediterranean" eggplants.  Well, here are two which Annalena had: 

Kissing cousins, don't you think?   Annalisa, and just about every Sicilian, will give you a very thorough lecture on what eggplant to use with what dish.  For this one, you can use whatever you like; however, do NOT assume they are the same,  for reasons we will now see.

You need to gather your other ingredients:

What Annalena hopes you see are  1/4 cup of salted capers, sitting in some hot water, a cup of chopped scallions, 2 cloves of garlic, some creme fraiche (because it was started, and she didn't want to open a container of yogurt), and a bunch of dill (because she had no parsley).   You only need 2 tablespoons of the yogurt/creme fraiche, but if you want to finish your container, who's looking?  Annalena chopped up the whole bunch of dill, but you can     cut back, or use the proper parsley if you like.  She was also generous with the lemon zest, using a tablespoon, instead of a teaspoon.  You'll also juice the lemon when you finish zesting it. 

The FINAL ingredient:  pomegranate molasses.  You can get this on line, or go to a Mideast store and get it, but get it.  It's good.  And a bottle will last you forever.  

And finalmente, a kiss of cayenne pepper or, if you have it and can find it, Aleppo pepper (a Syrian product, used everywhere in the Mideast).  

First, slice your eggplant into 1/2 inch cubes.  Mix them with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, and roast them, for 20 minutes.  

If you look at the first picture below, you will see how different the two eggplants are, once you cut them:   

They look very different, don't they?  For what we're doing, that's fine.  It may not be, for what you are doing, so always check your recipe.  

So we have these eggplant cut up, and mixed with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Get your hands in, coat them, and put the eggplant in the oven for 20 minutes, at 400 degrees.  This is what you get at the end: 

You will see, it cooked down some, and browned a bit.  Now, we're ready to "work." Get out your food processor, and dump in the eggplant.  Pulse it until you have a texture sort of like ground meat

Now, put all the other ingredients in:  the scallions, the parsley or dill, the garlic, chopped up, the lemon zest, the lemon juice, the pomegranate molasses, the yogurt/creme fraiche, and the  bit of cayenne/aleppo pepper, and process it, just until you combine it.   Taste it.  Need more salt? Probably?  You want more lemon?  You ought to have extras around.  More heat?  Probably not, but go for it.  Like that molasses taste?  Be gentle, but feel free.  And at the end, you have four cups of this wonderful, tasty stuff: 

That is, you have it if you can keep from eating it, which is not easy to do.  

That didn't seem like much work, ragazzi, did it?  The  timing on this recipe said 45 minutes, which Annalena assumes is right, counting the roasting time.  But she didn't.  She put that 20 minutes to good use.  

So, ragazzi, as we go through the dog days of summer, and we're looking for cooler, lighter food, try this.  It's seasonal, it's tasty, it's unusual - all the things we love.  

Alla promssima!  And Ciao for now.  BACI!!!!