Turkish Eggplant and Potato Kizartma With Tomato Iskender Sauce

"In 2006 we had a Zaar lunch at Efes One Turkish Restaurant at Albion in Brisbane. Their Turkish banquet was fabulous and this is one of the entrees we had. I wrote down the name of it on a table napkin, then googled recipes when I got home and experimented until I was able to replicate it. There are quite a few steps, but it's really quite simple and well worth the effort. Essentially these are fried potato and eggplant stacks, interspersed with a thick tomato sauce and then drizzled with garlic flavoured yoghurt and garnished with chopped parsley. The taste just 'zings' in your mouth! Don't overdo the chilli - it's only supposed to have a little background heat. Just a final note, the skin of larger eggplants may go tough when you fry them, so opt for small to medium if you can."
 
Download
photo by Mivashel photo by Mivashel
photo by Mivashel
Ready In:
1hr
Ingredients:
13
Yields:
4 entrees
Advertisement

ingredients

  • Garlic Yoghurt

  • 200 g container natural yoghurt
  • 9.85 ml garlic, minced (I used bottled garlic for this)
  • Tomato Iskender Sauce

  • 25 g butter
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped (fresh)
  • 1 small red chili peppers, finely chopped or 2.46 ml minced chile
  • 410 g can chopped tomatoes
  • 29.58 ml tomato paste
  • salt
  • Kizartma

  • 2-4 eggplants, sliced 1/4-inch thick (you'll need enough eggplant slices to cover a slice of the potato, multiplied by 12)
  • 2-3 medium potatoes, unpeeled, sliced 1/4-inch thick (you'll need 12 slices)
  • 118.29 ml oil, approximately
  • Garnish

  • 78.78 ml fresh parsley, finely chopped
Advertisement

directions

  • Garlic Yoghurt:

  • At least an hour before serving, combine yoghurt and garlic in a small bowl. Stir, cover and refrigerate. When you start cooking, remove from refrigerator and allow yoghurt to come back to room temperature.
  • Iskender Sauce:

  • Melt butter in a small frying pan over a medium heat.
  • Add onion, garlic and chilli and cook until onion is transparent - about 5 minutes.
  • Add tomatoes and tomato paste to the pan and cook, stirring, until the mixture comes to a boil.
  • Boil for 5 minutes, then reduce heat and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes until the sauce is rich and very thick.
  • Taste and add salt as required.
  • Kizartma:

  • Preheat oven to 100C (you're going to use this to keep the eggplant warm after you've cooked it).
  • Heat some of the oil in a large frypan and fry the eggplant slices, in batches if necessary, until brown on both sides, adding more oil as required.
  • Line a dinner plate with kitchen paper and transfer eggplant to the plate when cooked.
  • Keep eggplant warm in the oven while you cook the potatoes.
  • Add some more oil to the same pan, and fry the potato slices until golden brown on each side.
  • To assemble:

  • Make 4 stacks, alternating potato, eggplant and a dessertspoon of tomato sauce. Each stack should have 3 slices each of potato and eggplant. Finish each stack with a spoonful of sauce, then drizzle each stack with garlic yoghurt (being careful not to topple it).
  • Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve.

Questions & Replies

Got a question? Share it with the community!
Advertisement

Reviews

  1. though a simple concept, this dish looks very beautiful and is extremely pleasing to taste. I love this Turkish dish (it is distinctly turkish), and wouldn't mind making it in even larger portions and serving it is a main (you might as well - it would barely take any longer than the current servings). Terrific recipe! thank you!
     
  2. delicious!! thanks..
     
  3. I made this for NA*MEs DISH OF THE DAY & am so glad I did! It is absolutely fantastic! We love garlic & eggplants so this was just the dish for us. I can't wait to make it again (& again & again...) Thanks so much for a wonderful recipe Kookaburra! Rezika :)
     
Advertisement

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p>Above: Slideshow of our garden at Avalon Slideshow of our recent holiday at Woodgate Beach, South-East Queensland, Australia. Hi! I'm Kookaburra, from Australia. First, a promise. I will only post recipes on this site which I've made myself and to which I would personally give a 5 star rating - what you give them is up to you ;-) I look forward to receiving your feedback. If you look at my reviews, they're all 5 stars. That doesn't mean I give 5 stars to every recipe I try. I'm just not interested in giving poor ratings to anyone else's recipe because I accept that different people have different tastes. So, I've decided that I'll only review those recipes which I really love and which I'd make again and recommend to friends. If a recipe meets that criteria - even if it needs a bit of 'tweaking' to match my tastes, I'll give it 5 stars. If not, I'll just delete it from my recipe book and no hard feelings. I'm not advocating this as the 'right' approach. I just decided I needed a consistent strategy for rating and this is mine. I'm passionate about cooking - and eating! What I look for in food is something that 'zings' in the mouth. I like lots of taste - I'm not a big fan of subtlety. I don't often cook recipes exactly as written. I like to experiment and adapt things to my own taste. A retired marketing executive and academic, I live with my elderly (but thoroughly modern) mother in a tiny mountain village at the edge of the rainforest. I'm female, happily single, in my mid-40s and boast the Rubenesque figure of a passionate cook! Avalon, our 'story-book' cottage, overlooks a small lake. As I sit at my computer or work in the kitchen, I'm serenaded by a cacophany of native birds - including a very fat family of kookaburras! We have quite a large property and are lucky to have vegetable gardens and a variety of fruit and nut trees. I look forward to sharing recipes on Recipezaar with family, friends and friends I've yet to meet. last minute flight</p>
 
View Full Profile
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Find More Recipes