Eggplant with walnuts recipe

Have you ever tasted eggplant with walnuts? Well, you definitely should! And it's a great dish if you are a vegetarian.

First of all, let's have a look at the ingredients we'll need to prepare the dish:

Buying the ingredients

Well, first of all, you need to collect all the ingredients, right? So, let's go shopping! You should buy good eggplants so that they won't get bad or something and you will be happy with your choice and the dish will be delicious, too. So just take the good eggplants. They should not be very soft, and not very hard, too. They should be dark purple and should not have some wrinkles and stuff. And of course, they should not be green or something. They should not have some damages that you can see with your eyes. And, well, if you can't see something with your eyes, you can't be responsible for that, so...

Now, here in Georgia, in Kakheti, in particular, there are many walnut trees. I, personally, have five walnut trees, well, my parents and grandparents have them, but still. We even had six walnut trees, but unfortunately, one died a year ago and we had to cut it down. It was a delicious one, if you want to know the truth. That was really sad. And the harvest was good from it. So, what I'm saying is that I don't really have to buy walnuts, as I have them at home. But, be prepared, that they are not cheap. And if you buy ground ones, they will be more expensive, of course. But except the eggplant, the walnuts are the main ingredients, so, without them the dish won't be the dish!

Preparation process

In the beginning, you should wash eggplants and cut them length ways into thin (but not very thin) pieces. Then I usually season them with salt on both sides and set aside for about half an hour. That way eggplants emit juice and they don't have a bitter taste.

Then, I ground the walnuts. It's traditional in Georgia to further crush the walnuts with a back of a spoon to extract walnut oil, and then later this oil is used to dress the prepared dish, but it's very hard work and time-consuming, so I don't usually do that.

Then we crush garlic and salt together and add them some coriander, pepper, saffron. Then we add this to the walnuts. We also add water to this mixture and vinegar. Mix thoroughly. Now, the vinegar is needed just some drops, because I use the vinegar of my vineyard, and I must say that our vinegar is pretty hard and it's not like that apple vinegar or something like that, because the apple vinegar is really soft and that's why people with problems with their digestive system take that type of vinegar, so their stomach and gallbladder won't suffer much. And, so, this grapes' vinegar is not that soft, and especially the one that my grandfather makes, and so I just use some drops in the dish.

Place eggplants on the pan with oil. Cook them on both sides. Then, when they are warm you can spread the walnut mixture on the eggplants. Then you fold each eggplant and the dish is ready.

You can combine fresh chopped coriander with the walnut mixture, if you'd like, too.

Pomegranates for the dish

For the dish to be lovely and good-looking, you can use pomegranate seeds on it. Now, it's very popular on Georgian feasts and stuff like that and people just mostly use these pomegranate seeds to decorate all the dishes on the table and so on and so forth. Well, I really like pomegranate and I love eating it. And it's really healthy and wholesome. So, remember to eat some pomegranates!

It's very healthy and good for your health. So, pomegranates is one of the healthiest foods on earth and it has been proven, that eating them may reduce many risks of all sorts of diseases. Pomegranates contain punicalagins, which are extremely powerful antioxidants found in the juice and peel of a pomegranate. Pomegranates also contain punicic acid. It is a type of conjugated linoleic acid with potent biological effects. They also have anti-inflammatory effects. And one study in diabetics found that 250 ml of pomegranate juice per day for 12 weeks lowered the inflammatory markers CRP and interleukin-6 by 32% and 30%. They may improve memory, fight against cancers, they may lower blood pressure, etc. So, they really are great for your health.

I really like eating them and, although many find the peeling process very hard and they are very lazy to peel the pomegranate, as it needs some time and, in result, you get not so many pomegranate seeds as you expect, but still, it's good and I like it very much. So, you shouldn't get all lazy and stuff and you should peel the pomegranate and just eat it and enjoy the taste!

My sister's success on this dish in Germany

So, this dish is a great dish for those who are vegetarian. My sister studies in Germany and they had this day when they had to make some traditional dishes and one of the dishes she prepared was this eggplants with walnuts. And, it's not some simple dish or something, as it really needs some time and as they are very delicious, it's usually not enough for everyone to eat and one can not really prepare this to be enough. So, what I want to say is, that she really worked hard, I can imagine, to prepare this dish, and it's really time-consuming, after all. Despite the fact, that it's kind of simple to prepare, you need to prepare a lot of the pieces and that's what is time-consuming! So, students from other countries could taste it and share their opinions about the dish. Well, guess what, they were very surprised and fascinated with the dish! My sister said that the other students were amazed by the dish, and mainly there were some vegetarians who really liked it. They just loved it! Because it's a great dish and they said that they could just eat it all day long and they wouldn't get bored with it.

My sister said that everyone, including teachers, were asking for the recipe of the dish - eggplant with walnuts. They loved it so much that they were ready to prepare it themselves just to feel its taste again. And look at this picture and tell me that you wouldn't want to taste them! Well, you may find it not very delicious when looking at just some random picture, but, trust me, I can even feel its smell and taste from the picture _ it's that good! If you try once, you'll want to taste it every time you see it, or even if you don't see it, you will want to eat it! So the credits go to my sister on this picture and not only the picture, _ she prepared this wonderful dish which everyone liked. And she did it with a few ingredients, well, I think she didn't have those spices that we have in Georgia and, imagine, if she had had those spices there, everyone would have been in shock then! So, the spices do count! And they count a lot! So, don't miss the spices, because if you do, the dish won't be as delicious as it should be.

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