FATTET AL BETINGAN MAHSHI

Fattet al Betingan Mahshi image

This Syrian and Lebanese dish, for which the city of Damascus is famous, is complex and requires time, but it is not difficult and it has dramatic appeal, with different layers of texture and flavor. There are those who prefer deep-frying the stuffed eggplants and the bread, and those who stew the eggplants in tomato sauce and toast the bread instead of frying. I have tried both ways and found them both delicious. A little sour-pomegranate concentrate gives a brown color and sweet-and-sour flavor to the tomato sauce.

Yield serves 6

Number Of Ingredients 13

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Ingredients

Vegetable oil
12 ounces ground beef or lamb
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup pine nuts
6 small eggplants (3 1/2-4 1/2 inches long), weighing about 1 3/4 pounds
2 pounds tomatoes, peeled and chopped
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons pomegranate concentrate or molasses (optional)
2 pita breads
2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt or 1 1/2 cups thick, drained yogurt at room temperature
2 cloves garlic, crushed (optional)

Steps:

For the eggplant stuffing, heat 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet. Put in the meat and cook for about 10 minutes, adding salt, pepper, cinnamon, and allspice, and crushing the meat with a fork and turning it over until it is cooked and the liquid has evaporated.
In a small skillet, fry the pine nuts in a drop of oil, shaking the pan to brown them lightly all over. Stir half the pine nuts into the meat.
Wash and dry the eggplants and hollow them out with a corer (see page 315). Fill them with the meat-and-pine-nut mixture. (Use the eggplant flesh for another dish.)
Make the tomato sauce in a wide pan or baking pan. Put in the tomatoes with the sugar, a little salt and pepper, and, if you like, the pomegranate concentrate. Stir well and simmer for 5 minutes. Put in the eggplants, and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes, or until the eggplants are very soft, turning them over once.
Open out the pita breads, cutting around them with scissors or a serrated knife, and separating them into halves. Toast them under the broiler until they are crisp and lightly browned.
Mix the yogurt with the garlic, if using.
Just before serving, assemble the different components in a wide and deep serving dish. Break the toast into small pieces with your hands into the bottom of the dish. Take the eggplants out of the tomato sauce, and pour the tomato sauce over the toast, which will become soft and bloated. Pour the yogurt all over, and arrange the stuffed eggplants on top. Then sprinkle with the remaining pine nuts.
Instead of cooking the eggplants in the tomato sauce, fry them in enough medium-hot oil to half-cover them, turning to cook them all over. The skins (there is no bare flesh) stop them from absorbing the oil. Lift them out and drain on paper towels.
Mix 2 tablespoons tahina paste with the yogurt.