[Sca-cooks] What's going on here?

[Mark Calderwood]

At 20:03 17/10/02 +0000, you wrote:
>Recipe of Eggplant Pancakes
>al-Andalusi p. C-5
>
>Instead of boiling the eggplants, I salted them, let them sit for a while,
>then rinsed them and nuked them.  I used 2 large eggs, subbed cheap soy
>sauce for the murri, but otherwise followed the instructions.

I had a crack at this recipe for al-Mansuqah. I boiled the eggplant, then
shredded the flesh with a fork before mixing with the other ingredients.
(I've never needed to salt eggplant to remove the bitterness...maybe we
just have sweeter eggplants here.) I found with the water absorbed by the
eggplant the mixture was reasonably pliable, so that's probably the
important step. I also used a smaller eggplant and an extra egg, so that
probably helped bind it better. I ended up with a thickish glop that I
could mould into patties- more like Asian  fish cakes than what we usually
think of as pancakes. I also used very little oil with the eggs, basically
I just showed it the bottle.

I thought the sauce was bloody awful, the redaction makes a very harsh and
acrid sauce that obscured the taste of the cakes, and is nothing at all
like middle eastern sauces. I monkeyed around with it and ended up using
roast garlic for a more mellow flavour, halved the quantities of oil and
vinegar and used a lighter mellow vinegar. I cut the murri by more than
three quarters which was enough to give it a slight tang but not overwhelm
the delicate tastes of the dish. Much better.

Just for kicks I added fresh chopped coriander and shaved parmesan cheese
to the second half of the eggplant mixture- wow!

They do taste great fresh and hot, but less great cold, and freezing/
nuking makes them ok but not brilliant imo. I didn't go with them because
of the potential problems of preparing them fresh in quantity, you might
want to bear that in mind for over 200 (unless you have a willing knave to
fry them all afternoon and keep them in a warming oven...)

hope this is helpful,
Giles