Pan-Fried Aubergine & Lamb (Turkish)

"Istanbul, now Constantinople"

Holly and I both have the same dream to travel to Istanbul one day. After knowing one another for almost 20 years, we only learned that detail about each other a couple of months ago. Since then we've started ourselves on the path to an Istanbul, Turkey vacation in 2012. To get myself worked up I put on an episode of No Reservations wherein Tony goes to Istanbul (see collection 8 on Netflix). Everywhere he went there was lamb being served. Lots and lots and lamb.

Now, I love lamb. The flavor is unlike any other meat, it's succulent, flavorful, mildly oily and it sits on the palette for hours if cooked properly. Last night at dinner with the Hovey's I ordered the Braised Lamb Shank and was in heaven. Eating lamb takes me back to the happier days of my childhood when my parents were still married and we'd take our annual trip out to the Lazy-H Ranch in the mountains of San Diego for Easter dinner. I can still see the dining room full of people enjoying their meals and hear my dad telling us boys that the only way to eat Easter dinner is to make sure it's with lamb and some mint jelly. Ah memories...

After my experience last night, the pleasant memories of holiday dinners swimming through my head and Anthony Bourdain shoving images of cooked lamb into my retinas for an hour, Holly surprised me and said "I wonder if this cookbook has any Turkish recipes?". Lo and behold it did and not surprisingly most are lamb based.

The decision of which to cook was simple. I was already planning on making a tomato and eggplant Thai stir-fry for dinner, all I needed to pick up were a couple of onions and the lamb. That sweet, beautiful lamb.

It starts out as a stir-fry but winds up being like a stew. Holly had never tried lamb and doesn't care for the texture of onions (but enjoys the flavor of them). For me, it was like eating some of my best memories... only better. For Holly, she kept replaying that scene from the Simpsons wherein the lamb begs Lisa not eat it. I say butcher that lamb and let's make some dinner.

This recipe comes from an old cookbook from 1984 entitled Best of International Cooking by HPBooks and can be found on page 194.

Ingredients:

• 2 small eggplants, cut in cubes
• Salt
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 tbs butter
• 3 tbs sesame oil
• 1.5 # of lamb, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
• 3 onions, coarsely chopped
• 2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
• Ground pepper
• 5 cups of hot beef stock

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the cubed eggplant with 1 tbs of salt; let stand for 30 minutes off to the side while you prep and measure everything else. Put the stock in a saucepan and start heating it on low.

Rinse the eggplant and dry with a paper towel. Heat your large skillet (I used my wok) to medium and add the oil and butter. Once nice and hot, toss in the eggplant and saute until brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and allow to dry.

Increase the heat to high and add the lamb to the juices still in the wok. You're only going to sear it, so once the lamb has browned, remove it with the slotted spoon and place into a bowl.

Turn down to the heat to medium high and saute the onions until they are nice and gold. I used white onions. Red onions would have scared Holly away and lets be honest... yellow onions are pretty flavorless. Throw in the tomatoes, the garlic and as much salt as you want; cook for 5 minutes.

Add the browned lamb with some more salt and pepper. Add the hot stock to the mix and turn down the heat to low to simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the eggplant and increase the heat to medium. Cook for 30 more minutes.

Serve with a slotted spoon. Serves 4 to 6.