Aubergines in Turkey

Emine Foat Tugay says in her family chronicles Three Centuries that in Turkey the egg-plant (aubergine) is the ‘king of vegetables’. She gives a description of ways of cooking them beginning with those which are cooked in oil and eaten cold.

1. Egg-plant salad. The egg-plants are cooked on a hot baking tin, then peeled and mashed with yoghurt. Olive oil, lemon juice, and salt are added. The purée, which should be fairly firm, is served garnished with halved black olives and thin slices of sweet pepper. It is also delicious as hors d’œuvres.
2. With its skin peeled in strips, and sliced to the thickness of a little finger, the egg-plant is fried in deep oil and left to drip. It is eaten with a sauce of yoghurt beaten smooth.
3. The egg-plant is slit up lengthwise, stuffed with thinly-sliced onions, white pistachios, and black currants, and covered with a slice of tomato, then cooked in broth and oil.
4. Yalanci dolma. Hollowed out and stuffed with fried rice, white pistachios, and black currants, the egg-plant is cooked in broth and oil.
5. Forming the basis of a mixed vegetable dish, called the türlü variety, it can be cooked with oil and eaten cold in the summer.
6. Türlü proper. The same mixture is cooked with butter and flavoured with small pieces of meat and sliced tomatoes. It is arranged in the shape of a mound, in a pattern, the dark colour of the egg-plant being relieved by the lighter shades of accompanying vegetables.
7. The egg-plant is cut into small squares and cooked plain with broth and flavoured with sliced tomatoes.
8. Musakka. The egg-plant is cut up into largish pieces, fried, and then cooked with minced meat sprinkled over it.
9. Dolma. With its two ends cut off, the egg-plant is hollowed out, and stuffed with spiced minced meat, herbs, and rice.
10. Karniyarik (literally ‘split belly’). As the name indicates, the egg-plant cooked in this way is cut open lengthwise and stuffed with spiced minced meat, black currants, and white pistachios.
11. Oturtma, meaning ‘made to sit down’, is a variation of the karniyarik, except that the egg-plant is here cut into thick round slices, hollowed and filled with the same stuffing as above. It is eaten with plain pilav (rice).