Strobist info: Canon 430EX in a shoot-through umbrella camera right on 1/4 power. Fired via a Cactus V5 trigger.

Inspired by the delicious food I ate in Turkey and the primal challenge, I made an eggplant and meat dish for dinner last week. I took a stroll through the Irvington Farmer’s MarketArchived Link that meets every Wednesday and saw the eggplant a local farmer had at his booth. I’ve never cooked eggplant before, but I thought, why not? So I bought some. It turns out to be pretty simple to prepare.

Ingredients:
Eggplant
Steak
Tomatoes
Onions
Garlic
Olive Oil
Hot Peppers
Spices

First, I cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and soaked it in cold salt water for 30 minutes to take away the bitterness. Our fabulous Turkish tour guide Mehmet told me to do this. As I let the eggplant soak, I cut up some steak into small pieces and browned it with some onions. I also cut up a few large tomatoes and finely chopped some garlic and one of the hot peppers. I mixed this all together in a casserole dish with the browned meat and onions, and put the eggplant in the dish flesh-side up. I cut some slits in the eggplant and put in chopped garlic, then drizzled quite a bit of olive oil over the whole dish. I also cut the remaining pepper in half and put it in the dish as well. I baked everything (with the casserole dish covered!) on 400 for an hour.

Here is a shot of the dish when it came out of the oven:

I have two other ways I’d like to prepare eggplant, including stuffing one, so check back!