Badinjan Muhassa
This is one of my favorite medieval middle eastern recipes. I make it every time I do a middle eastern feast for the
SCA, and sometimes just because my friends (looking at you, Cham!) love it.
I do a slightly altered version from the recipe below, which I flat out stole from Stefan’s Florilegium http://www.florilegium.org/ Go and check it out if you are at all interested in historical food, arts and sciences or just plain cool stuff.
Preheat oven to 350F. Pierce eggplant about a dozen times with a fork. Roast the eggplants until they become soft, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, grind the walnuts with the vinegar and salt to form a “dough” in a food processor. If you don’t own one, buy one. I’ll wait…
Form the nut dough into flat patties and cook over medium heat until they brown. Press down with spatula after the first turn. Once the patties are brown on both sides, you can break them up and complete the cooking process. Put aside to cool.
Remove the eggplant from the oven and place in a covered bowl or in a plastic bag. This will loosen the skin. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel them. Use a paring knife to lift the skin and it should come off in strips. Cut the eggplant in rounds about half an inch thick. Put the eggplant in a colander and rinse them under cool running water. Squeeze the bitter liquor out of each slice and let drain. Chop eggplant roughly and put in a food processor, you know, that cool brand new one you just bought. Pulse a few times and add the cooked nut dough, salt and pepper, caraway and the olive oil. Puree until it is smooth. This is not a very attractive dish, but it tastes amazing. Taste and adjust seasonings to taste. I like a bit more vinegar and salt than some folks, but use your judgement. This is now your dish. Own it.
Serve with pitas or corn chips. A nice presentation is to drizzle good olive oil on it and top it with whole caraway seeds and minced fresh parsley. I also like to sprinkle a little Sriracha Salt for color and zing.
Badinjan Muhassa
Ibn al-Mahdi’s cookbook in 10th c. collection, Charles Perry tr.
Cook eggplants until soft by baking, boiling or grilling over the fire, leaving them whole. When they are cool, remove the loose skin, drain the bitter liquor and chop the flesh fine. It should be coarser than a true purée. Grind walnuts fine and make into a dough with vinegar and salt. Form into a patty and fry on both sides until the taste of raw walnut is gone; the vinegar is to delay scorching of the nuts. Mix the cooked walnuts into the chopped eggplant and season to taste with vinegar and ground caraway seed, salt and pepper. Serve with a topping of chopped raw or fried onion.
3/4 lb eggplant
1 c walnuts
2 T vinegar (for nut dough)
1/2 t salt (for nut dough)
1/8 t each pepper and salt
1 t caraway seed
1 1/2 T vinegar (at the end)
1/4 c chopped raw onion
Simmer the eggplant 20 to 30 minutes in salted water (1/2 t salt in a pint of water). Let it cool. Peel it. Slice it and let the slices sit on a colander or a cloth for an hour or so, to let out the bitter juice.
Grind the walnuts, add vinegar and salt to make a dough. Make patties about 1/2″ thick and put them on a frying pan at medium to medium high heat, without oil. In about half a minute, when the bottom side has browned a little, turn the patty over and use your pancake turner to squash it down to about 1/4″ (the cooked side is less likely to stick to your implement than the uncooked side). Continue cooking, turning whenever the patty seems about to scorch. When you are done, the surface of the patty will be crisp, brown to black-and since it is thin, the patty is mostly surface. If the patties start giving up lots of walnut oil (it is obvious-they will quickly be swimming in the stuff) the pan is too hot; throw them out, turn down the heat and make some more.
Chop up the eggplant, mix in the nut patties (they will break up in the process), add pepper, salt, caraway (ground in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle), and vinegar. Top with onion. Eat by itself or on bread.