Hunkar Begendi
- Ready In:
- 2hrs
- Ingredients:
- 13
- Serves:
-
6
ingredients
-
Stew
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 1⁄2 lbs lamb, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 lb tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 teaspoon sugar
-
Eggplant Cream Sauce
- 1 lb eggplant
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 cups hot milk
- 1⁄4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 1⁄2 cup kasseri cheese, grated
directions
- Stew: Fry the onion in the oil till soft. Add meat and brown. Add garlic and cook for a few seconds longer.
- Add tomatoes, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Add water to cover and simmer with the lid on for about 1 or 1 1/2 hours, till meat is very tender.
- If necessary, add more water or let the sauce reduce a bit to get a good saucy consistency.
- Eggplant Sauce: Prick eggplants all over and roast in a very hot oven (500 degrees or as hot as your oven goes) for 30 minutes, until eggplants soften and skin chars. Cool and peel carefully.
- Put lemon juice in a bowl of water and put peelec eggplants in acidified water to keep them white.
- Melt butter in saucepan, add flour and stiur over very low heat for 2 minutes or until well-blended. Remove from the heat and add milk gradually, beating vigorously. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste. Cook ove rlow heat for 15 minutes, until sauce thickens.
- Drain the eggplants in a colander and squeeze out as much water and juice as possible. Chop in the colander and mash with a fork (I think this step is meant to allow additional drainage).
- Mix with the milk sauce until well blended. Return to the heat, add grated cheese, stir until melted and add more salt and pepper if necessary.
- Serve the stew with the eggplant cream in a ring around it. Serve with rice.
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
I am a web producer and copy editor at an online newspaper.
Many of my favorite foods are down-home Southern comfort food like my grandmother and mother made, but I also live in an ethnically diverse area and have been able to learn a lot about different styles of cooking. I especially like Asian, Mediterranean and Indian food.
I'm working on learning to cook Indian food and I'm discovering that, like most traditional cuisines, it involves a lot of long complicated processes and a lot of intuition and background knowledge on the part of the cook. Hope I can begin to grasp some of that knowledge eventually.