Eggplants are one of my all time favorite vegetables. They just taste amazing whichever way you cook them. You can stew them, roast them, fry them. It all works. But if you ask me to choose, fried eggplants get my top vote. This recipe doesn’t use batter to fry the eggplants which results in super light, earthy and melt-in-your-mouth eggplants.

Fried eggplant is a common summer meze in Turkish cuisine. They are served either with yogurt or tomato sauce. The tomato sauce version is called shakshuka (not to be confused with the poached egg dish from Middle East). For this recipe, I will use yogurt and save the shakshuka recipe for another blog post. The yogurt in this recipe balances the earthy flavor of the eggplant so well and lightens up the dish.

I highly recommend serving this dish shortly after freshly frying the eggplants. Eating them freshly fried is very similar to the satisfaction of eating a freshly baked cookie, right out of the oven. I used to steal a couple freshly fried slices from the plate when my mom was busy frying another batch and inevitably, get scolded. I have to admit, I never felt guilty.

Yields: 4-6 servings Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

2 eggplants

1 and 1/2 cups vegetable oil

5 spoonfuls of plain yogurt

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 teaspoons salt

Preparation

1. Wash the eggplants and slice off their caps. Peel the eggplants in a stripe pattern, alternating by peeling and not peeling lengthwise (see pictures).

2. Slice the eggplants crosswise into 1/3 inch thick slices.

3. Fill a large bowl with cold tap water. Add 2 teaspoons of salt into the water and stir until it dissolves. Put all the sliced eggplants into the salt water. This helps with two things: one, it keeps the eggplant slices from browning and two, it removes the bitter taste of the eggplant.

4. In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, heat 1/2 cup of the vegetable oil. Eggplants absorb a lot of oil, so instead of adding all of the oil at once, I add it to the pan in increments as I fry.

5. Using a paper towel, pat dry 5-6 slices of eggplants and transfer to the frying pan containing the hot oil. A note of caution: if you don’t pat the eggplants dry, water touching the hot oil will create splashes and you can burn yourself, so please don’t skip this step.

6. Fry each side of the eggplant until it reaches a golden color. In the beginning, when your oil is not hot enough, it might take up to 2-3 minutes per side to fry the eggplant. Once the oil is hot enough, it will take as quick as 45 seconds to a minute per side to fry the eggplant.

7. Place a paper towel on a large plate. Transfer the fried eggplant slices onto the paper towel to soak excess oil.

8. Continue to repeat steps 5-7 until all eggplants slices are fried, adding more oil to the pan when needed.

9. For the sauce, combine yogurt and garlic in a bowl. Add salt to taste. Mix until the yogurt is smooth. Drizzle some yogurt sauce on the eggplants or serve on the side.