Armenian Eggplant

The pleasant sour-spicy taste of fried eggplants stands out in any salad. The end of summer is rich in vegetables, and how can one resist trying to prepare Armenian eggplants! There are several versions of this salad, but the recipe presented here considers the most traditional variant, which has successfully taken root even outside Armenia.

Yield: 5 servings.

Caloric content: 82 kcal per 100 grams of the dish.

Preparation time: 40 minutes.

Cuisine: Armenian.

Ingredients

• eggplants - 600 g;
• sweet ground pepper - 350 g;
• tomatoes - 400 g;
• onion - 130 g;
• young garlic - 2 cloves;
• parsley - 40 g;
• salt, pepper.

Preparation

1. Prepare the ingredients for cooking Armenian eggplants.

2. If the eggplants are not of a variety that has no seeds and does not taste bitter, then they need to go through the standard preparation procedure before starting to cook. First, thinly slice the skin. Cut the fruit lengthwise into slices of 1 cm.

3. Sprinkle each slice on both sides with rock salt and stack them on a plate. After about 10 minutes, bitter liquid will start to be released.

4. In the meantime, prepare the other vegetables. Remove the stem along with the seeds from the pepper by cutting it in half for convenience. Then divide each half into 4 elongated sections.

5. Finely chop the onion.

6. Chop the greens (parsley pairs well with eggplants).

7. Cut the tomatoes in half, removing the green part of the stem, and then cut the halves into wedges.

8. Now you can continue the preparation of the eggplants - they have already developed a bitter moisture. Pat them dry with a paper towel so the pieces become as dry as possible (this helps them absorb less oil when frying and prevents splattering).

9. In refined oil, fry the eggplants until they are golden brown, but not fully cooked.

10. They will absorb some oil, so place the prepared pieces on a napkin that will absorb the fat.

11. Do not wash the pan, but immediately fry the pepper in it - also not fully cooked, but until a nice crust forms.

12. Transfer it to a napkin.

13. In the same pan, fry the onion until lightly golden.

14. Add the tomatoes to it.

15. Heat them a little so that they just become soft.

16. Squeeze the garlic into the parsley.

17. Mash it in the green mixture so that the spicy paste is evenly distributed.

18. Remove half of the tomato-onion sauce from the pan.

19. On the remaining sauce, place a portion of the fried eggplants.

20. On top of them, add half of the pepper.

21. Sprinkle everything with spicy parsley.

22. The next layers are repeated, starting with the tomato sauce.

23. And so on until the finishing green layer. Cover the pan with a lid. Let the entire structure simmer under it for 10 minutes.

24. And now, Armenian eggplants begin to spread the hot aroma of garlic and vegetables. This is a signal that the dish is ready. It can be served both as individual portions in small salad bowls and on a common platter. The flavor is very expressive, compelling one to eat just one more piece of the hot dish. But even the cooled salad is very tasty, give it a try!