Eggplant or aubergine is a widely used vegetable in Turkish kitchen. You can find hundreds of delicious eggplant recipes. Especially smoked eggplant is one of my favourite ingredients in any kind of pasta or salad recipes. Now let’s jolly on with our lovely Turkish stuffed eggplant recipe or as we name it in Turkish “Karniyarik” whose word-for-word translation is “split belly” 😀

Ingredients

  • 5 medium eggplants
  • 3 tablespoons of salt (to soak eggplants)
  • 1 glass of vegetable oil (to fry eggplants)
  • 2 onions (medium size and finely chopped)
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 300 gr. minced meat
  • 3-4 tomatoes
  • a pinch of parsley, salt, pepper,
  • 1 glass of water or broth
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste

Turkish Stuffed Eggplant Recipe – Karniyarik (TR)

  1. Cut the stems of the eggplants and peel off the skins. You may want to create a striped look.

2. Slice an opening on one side of the eggplants and spread it so that you will be able to put the filling here. 

3. Soak in salt water for 20-25 minutes, remove some of the seeds if you want, wash and dry.

4. Fry the eggplants with 1 glass of vegetable oil in a pan until they turn brown and soften.

5. Take fried eggplants out of the pan and put them on a napkin in order to remove excess oil.

6. Put 2 tablespoons of oil in frying pan, add chopped onions and garlic and fry them continuously until they are soft.

7. Add minced meat and stir for a few minutes until the minced meat leaves its water and absorbs it again. 

8. Add chopped tomatoes and stir until the tomato juice is absorbed. Remove the pan from the heat, add chopped parsley, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.

9. Place fried eggplants on an oven tray and fill in the middle of the eggplants with the help of a fork. 

10. Mix 1 glass of broth or water with remaining tomato puree and tomato paste. Pour the sauce over the pan.

11. Bake eggplants in preheated oven to 180 degrees for about 25-30 minutes until the eggplants soften and brownish. 

In Turkish cuisine stuffed eggplants are generally served with Turkish rice or pasta.

Bon appetite or “Afiyet olsun :)” (TR) 

Spread the taste :)