Eggplant Bake (Masbahat’a Darwish)

From Mezze to Milk Tart, Cecile Yazbek, Wakefield Press, 2011.

This looked to be so easy to make I was not too sure whether it really would work. When you just dump everything into a casserole dish and put it in the oven to cook you have the vague feeling that there’s something wrong—but all turned out okay. 

I placed in the casserole dish the following: an eggplant, a potato, an onion and a carrot (all chopped), half a green capsicum cut into pieces, a tomato cut into eighths, 100g haloumi cubed, a bay leaf, pepper and salt, ½ stick cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground allspice, and ¼ cup water. I mixed them up well and then dribbled 2 tablespoons olive oil on top before covering the casserole and placing it in a 200ºC oven for 1 hour. Towards the end of the time I took off the casserole lid.

I had a look at the contents of the casserole about half way through the cooking and saw that it had formed a lot of sauce. Before I started I had thought that I might serve it with a green vegetable like broccoli but when I saw the amount of liquid I put on some rice to have with it.

While I wouldn’t rave over this dish it was quite tasty and went well with the rice. Occasionally a chewy lump of haloumi was met, making a pleasing textural difference from the vegetables.

Taste: ✔✔✔        East of cooking: ✔✔✔✔✔

Eggplant Patties

From Mezze to Milk Tart, Cecile Yazbek, Wakefield Press, 2011.

The vegetables for this recipe had to be shredded. The author suggests shredding rather than grating, and she explains shredding as putting them through a food processor. So in went an eggplant, an onion and a tomato. A selection of flavourings was now added to the mix: chopped mint, chopped parsley, salt, pepper, cinnamon and allspice. To this lot went binding ingredients: olive oil, flour, baking powder and an egg. It was an easy mix to put together.

An oven tray was now prepared with a sheet of baking paper on it. The mixture was spooned on in patty-sized quantities and baked in a moderate oven for about 20-30 minutes.

I did not really enjoy these overmuch. The texture was a on the rubbery side. I think it would have been much better to have fried these in a pan rather than baking them in the oven. At least then they would have perhaps had the chance to develop a crisp crust which might have helped them.

Taste: ✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Corn and Bean Loaf

From Mezze to Milk Tart, Cecile Yazbek, Wakefield Press, 2011.

There is a great number of flashy cookbooks in the bookshops. They are glossy, full coloured, almost coffee table books. And hidden among these large showy books there are some small soft-covered books with no illustrations that could easily tend to be overlooked.

This one caught my eye because I stopped to work out what the title was: Mezze to Milk Tart. I guessed it meant from appetiser to dessert. But the subtitle made me look further: From the Middle East to Africa in my vegetarian kitchen. I thought this needed investigating a little further so I picked it up and flipped through the pages. There was a wide selection of recipes worth checking out. Not being one of the large colourful books it was not over expensive to buy.

The author has an interesting background. She grew up in South Africa, the daughter of Lebanese parents. She eventually migrated to Sydney and there ran Cecile’s Vegetarian Kitchen, a cooking school. She has now retired.

The corn and bean loaf began with an interesting sweated vegetable base, which the author uses for many of her recipes. Carrots, onion and celery are grated and placed in a saucepan with a little oil, some salt and a bay leaf. The saucepan is covered and the vegetables are sweated over a very low heat for about 20 minutes.

A measure of this sweated vegetables was placed on the bottom of a casserole dish. An egg was beaten with about a cup of stock, a cup of cornflour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder. This was seasoned and a can of beans was added. This lot was poured over the vegetable mix.

Over the top of all of this went a chopped tomato, a sprinkling of paprika and some grated Parmesan cheese. Some chopped thyme was sprinkled over the top and the casserole was placed in the oven to cook.

This was a very simple loaf to make and it turned out a reasonable one. It’s not one I would make again but with some sweet chilli sauce and a few other vegetables it made a comfortable meal.

Taste: ✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔