Egglpant with vegetables

Hello guys, how are you doing?

Today I want to tell you about this dish we call it “Ajapsandali” and it’s one of the loved ones in my family, well, mostly the folks love it, I mean, the elders and, you know, but it’s really a great dish and has lots of vitamins and many vegetables and stuff like that and it’s just a great one in summer. And the smell of it is just amazing and you won’t forget it once you’ve smelled it.

Ajapsandali is a very common dish in Georgia and it’s a very healthy and low-calorie dish, in addition, it’s a vegetarian dish, so that many people can enjoy eating it.

There are many different recipes of how to prepare Ajapsandali and every one of us prepares it differently, I guess, because there are some ingredients and you can add even more and you can just prepare each of them individually and then gather them together and cook them together, or just put them all together at once and let everything cook on a low heat. That’s a healthier version, if you ask me, the last one _ putting everything together and let it cook on a low heat for a couple of hours, until everything is cooked and it smells like heaven.

Well, the main ingredients of the dish are eggplants, of course, potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions and herbs. Some people even add some carrots and spices and some things for decorations and stuff like that. However, these are the main ingredients, so that they are always included in a dish. Well, maybe some people don’t include bell peppers, for example, my grandmother doesn’t use to use bell peppers in this dish. She just cuts eggplants, potatoes, onions and herbs and makes the dish. Maybe that’s because bell peppers weren’t so common some years ago in our place and we didn’t really had them, so that she just ignored the bell peppers, or maybe she didn’t love them, I don’t really know, I haven’t asked. But bell peppers give the dish this distinguished taste and it makes it taste really delicious and smell really delicious, too. So that, I really recommend using bell peppers in the dish and don’t leave them out!

Ingredients:

• 1 kilogramme eggplant
• 10 medium potatoes
• 4-5 medium tomatoes
• 5 medium onions
• 5-7 bell peppers (green, red, yellow)
• Basil fresh
• Coriander fresh
• Parsley fresh
• Water, ½ cup
• Oil

Preparation process 1:

So, as I’ve mentioned already, the preparation process of Ajapsandali is different for everyone and I will tell you one of them. This recipe  is simpler and not as time-consuming as the other one, but the difference is not much, if you ask me. Though, this one is healthier, I guess.

First of all, you should take eggplants, cut their green parts and wash them thoroughly. Then you should cut them into small cubes or something like that and put them into a pretty large saucepan. You need this large saucepan because the ingredients are much, but then when everything is cooked and stuff like that, you are surprised, how the dish “became smaller”. So, if you want to have enough amount of the dish for serving people, you should take a large saucepan and throw all the ingredients into it.

When you put those eggplant cubes in the saucepan, then comes the potatoes. You should definitely peel them and cut them into small cubes, too, or however you want them, but in general, people just cut them into shapes something like cubes. If you ask me, this takes some time, but it’s worth it, when everything is cooked and you eat the dish!

After the potatoes, you should wash and peel the tomatoes. They shouldn’t have their peel on them, because then it’s really disturbing when eating the dish. And the tomatoes should be really juicy, so that the dish will have a good amount of juice in it to be cooked well and not to need much water. You know, if it has a lot of water, it becomes not a stew, but a soup or something like that and the dish is ruined, because it’s not supposed to be a soup or something like that. Ajapsandali is a vegetable stew, if you want to know the truth. So, if the tomatoes are pretty large and juicy, you probably won’t need to add some water, or maybe you will even need to reduce the amount of tomatoes, if you ask me.

Then, you should take those bell peppers and wash them and cut that white matter out and the green one too. Then you should slice them and put those rings into the saucepan on other ingredients. The red bell peppers are really beautiful on the dish, if you ask me. So I usually use red bell peppers in Ajapsandali. Well, the other ones are great, too.

Now it’s time for onions and herbs. You should put some greatly chopped onions on the bell peppers and then put some chopped fresh herbs above them. Then you should add some water, (but not much!) and some oil to the dish, and of course, season it with salt, but remember, not to add too much salt! It’s better if the salt is less, than more, because if it doesn’t have enough salt, you will add it to the dish, but if it’s too much, then the dish is ruined and no one will like to eat it.

That’s it and now you can put the lid on the saucepan and put it on a gas on a low heat and cook it. Well, it needs some time to be cooked, of course, so when you think it’s ready, just taste it and see whether or not it’s really ready. Basically, you will understand that when you taste the potatoes. If they are soft and good, then they are cooked and so the dish is cooked, too. Because the potatoes need  the most of the time to be cooked and when they are cooked, so are the other ingredients.

To tell you the truth, this dish is more delicious after some time and even more delicious the next day, because all the ingredients mix up and their taste mix together and everything has just a great taste. Now, that’s when it’s called a dish and not ingredients. So when you prepare Ajapsandali, just remember , that if you eat it immediately after you’ve turned the gas off, it won’t taste very good or just how you imagined it and don’t be scared and don’t get all upset about that, because it’s not really a problem. You will just have to wait for some timefor all the ingredients’ tastes to become just one taste and the dish to be just perfect!

Preparation process 2:

The other recipe of Ajapsandali is a little bit different, but the ingredients are the same, of course, however, the process is a little tricky, I mean, you have to prepare each ingredient individually and then add them to the saucepan together and then put the saucepan on the gas and let everything cook together. That’s a little tiring, I guess, but they say that way it becomes more delicious and that’s how some people prepare the dish, but they just love to waste their times, if you ask me, or maybe they just think, if they work harder than it actually needs, it becomes more delicious. I’ve tried that, didn’t come out well. You know, once I was preparing something and I wanted my dish to be perfect and so that I just put all the effort in it and tried to do my best and make everything right. Despite everything, it didn’t really come out as I expected, it was just usual, nothing fancy or something like that. It didn’t even look like something to be seen what I had done and how much effort I had put in it. So, I’m just saying, that if you put your time in something like that and just put much effort in it, it just won’t come out right. Well, most of the times, at least. That’s my theory. It’s not proven or anything, but that’s how it works for me, so I just don’t really do that except for some occasions, I guess.

So, first of all, you take the potatoes and cut them into small cubes or something like that and wash them and put them into a saucepan and pour some water so that they are covered with water and let them boil for a couple of minutes.

Of course, you cut eggplants into cubes and stuff like that and set them aside.

You chop the onions and put them on an oiled pan and let them cook for a while. Then you should slice the bell pepper and add them to the onions and let them cook together there. Some people add carrots to them and cook them together and so the dish has carrots, too, if you want to . 

Well, there are tomatoes left. You should peel them and make a sauce from it, or just chop them or cut them into smaller pieces. If you don’t have tomatoes, you can use some tomato sauce or canned tomatoes, or whatever. It’s not a big deal, really, you can find those stuff everywhere, I guess. I usually have the peeled tomatoes in my blender mixed and then I pour this mixture on the eggplants and potatoes, which are already cut into pieces and layered in my saucepan.

So, after you have done these things, it’s time for everything to get together. First of all, you should put eggplants in a saucepan. Well, you could have those eggplants fried on pan, too. Some people do that, too, but I think it’s just a waste of time and that way your dish will have much oil, which gets it higher in calories. And after the eggplants , you should add some potatoes, which are boiled, but not already cooked and ready. They should be somewhere about halfway cooked. Then you add those tomatoes or tomato sauce or something. You can add both of them and that tomato sauce will give a good taste to your dish as it has some other ingredients in it, too, than the actual tomatoes. After that comes the time of bell peppers and onions which are in a pan and then you should put the herbs on top and that’s it. now you should decide whether or not the dish needs water and then you should put the saucepan on a low gas and let everything be cooked. And, of course, don’t forget the seasoning! You should definitely add some salt and some other spices if you want to. I just love when my dish has some assortment of spices, so I usually add some of them to Ajapsandali, too. Maybe some ground basil and coriander and yellow flower and red pepper.

Well, now this one won’t need so much time for cooking as the previous one, because potatoes and all the other ingredients are already halfway cooked and they will just cook faster. I haven’t prepared Ajapsandali with this recipe, so I don’t really know what’s the difference between the tastes or cooking process of those two recipes, I mean, I just know the first recipe and I haven’t done the second one. If I  prepare this dish with the second recipe, I will tell you whether there is a real difference or just a little and which method can be better.

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