Aubergines or eggplants? Or shall we use the Turkish word patlıcan?
Summer eggplants: different version eggplant salad/patlıcan salatası |
But a rose by any other name, aubergines are the true summer vegetable in this country. Remember the days when all we ever made with them was ratatouille?
My most popular recipe of all time in the 4 years of this blog is the classic aubergine meze with yogurt, lemon juice, and garlic which has had almost 14,000 pageviews!
But here is yet another version of patlıcan salatası, this time using a few other chopped vegetables and for a change, no yogurt. It is my favourite Summer ’14 aubergine meze and I have made it three times in the last two weeks! I will be making it at my next cooking class too ….
We’ve been enjoying it down at the beach so I asked how they made it: here are the ingredients as described:
- 3-4 aubergines, chargrilled (either on the gas ring, in the oven or on the BBQ)
- 1 big tomato, peeled if desired, then chopped
- 1 onion, chopped finely
- 1-2 green peppers – either the light green ones/çaliston, or any of the thin dark green ones
- a good handful parsley, chopped
- 2-3 cloves garlic, pounded with salt
- juice of half a lemon
- pinch of sumac/sumak
- drizzle of pomegranate molasses/nar ekşisi
- drizzle of olive oil
- salt and pepper
As with many of this type of recipe, these amounts are not absolute, if you prefer more garlic, for example, go ahead.
With all these vegetables, you can see that there is a fair bit of chopping – well, in summer especially, this is certainly the case here in Turkey! Best to get another pair of hands to help out ..
grill them right on the gas flame, turning from time to time |
blackened but softened, now cooling |
chopped and ready to go … |
- Place the grilled aubergines in a dish, cover with a double layer of stretch film and wait to cool. You will find that they peel much more easily if covered like this.
- Peel them, removing as much of the blackened skin as possible, place on a large plate and mash with a fork. You’re looking for a rough consistency as opposed to smooth.
- Add all the other ingredients one by one, mixing well as you go. I like this salad especially because of the additions of sumac and pomegranate molasses – they add a subtle depth of flavour and make it slightly different from the classic versions.
mix well to incorporate the ingredients and flavours |
- Arrange on a clean platter and add a final sprinkling of chopped parsley with a few black olives for decoration.
summer aubergine salad/patlıcan salatası |
Looks good!!!