Drying summer vegetables when they are abundant, during summer is not uncommon especially in villages around Mediterranean.
How to sun dry vegetables?
- If to be eaten as it is, should be sliced before starting to dry.
- If drying to be stuffed or wrapped, should be deseeded before starting to dry.
- If vegetables such as zucchini or eggplants are too long, should be cut into two or three.
- After drying is complete vegetables should be stored in clean cloth bags in moisture-free places. Adding few lavender and mint leaves will help keep away moths and insects.
- Most common vegetables for drying for stuffing are eggplants, zucchini and peppers.
- Try and pick similar sized vegetables.
- The most common way for drying used in Turkey is passing a tread in each vegetable and hanging them in the sun. It is an amazing sight to see.
You can choose to buy packaged dry vegetables if you prefer to skip drying yourself, which I do too.
Preparing the vegetables
Start with bringing a large pot of water to boil. Add a teaspoon of salt. Once the water is boiled add the eggplants and let them soak up the boiling water for about 6-7 water. This is done to get rid of the stiffness of the dried eggplants so that stuffing will be possible. Then remove the eggplants from the boiling water to a bowl with cold water. Repeat for other vegetables such as peppers and zucchini, these will require less boiling. Check if the vegetable has turned a bit softer, if will be time to take them out of the boiling water. Do not forget to rinse well the vegetables before starting to fill with stuffing.
If pepper paste is not available increase the amount of tomato paste and add red pepper flakes to taste.
Do not forget to taste the stuffing before starting to fill up the vegetables. This dish is supposed to be spicy and lemony.
Serving
Serve at room temperature. You can garnish either with a scoop of plain yogurt, or lemon wedges or chopped parsley. Also make the pomegranate sauce and olive oil handy incase someone wants to drizzle some more. You might consider serving cacik next to these vegan stuffed vegetables. Enjoy.
Stuffed Dry Eggplants and Red Peppers
Ingredients
- 15 dried eggplants
- 15 dried red peppers
- 1 teaspoon salt
Stuffing
- 2 onions
- 4 garlic cloves
- 250 grams rice
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 2 tablespoon red pepper paste
- 1-2 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon sumac
- 1 teaspoon dry mint flakes
- 1-2 teaspoon pomogranate sauce
- ½ lemon juice
- ½ bunch parsley
- ½ bunch dill
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
Preparing Dry Vegetables
- Boil a large pot of water. Put the dry eggplants and a teaspoon of salt in the boiling water. Keep inside the boiling water for about 10 minutes. Then moved the eggplants into a bowl of cold water.
- Do the same for dry red peppers. Keeping them for 5 minutes in the boiling water will be enough.
- Keep the vegetables in cold water for about 15 minutes.
- Then, rinse the dry vegetables under flowing water, until the water flowing under the colander becomes clear.
- Line up the vegetables with the holes facing downwards in a colander. Rinsing is important to get rid of the bitter taste of the dry vegetables.
Stuffing
- Slightly heat a pot, add the olive oil. Add the chopped onions and sauté until translucent.
- Add minced garlic and sauté for an additional 2 minutes.
- Add the tomato and pepper pastes, sauté for an additional minute.
- Rinse the rice under flowing water and drain.
- Add the rice to the pot, stir until the rice becomes shiny.
- Add salt, sugar, dry mint flakes, red pepper flakes, sumac. Also add 200 millilitres of boiling water. Lower the heat and cook until the water is soaked up and the rice is cooked half way.
- After removing the pot from the heat, add the chopped dill and parsley, together with the lemon juice.
- Mix well, check and adjust spices to your likes and set aside.
Stuffing the Vegetables
- When both the vegetables and the stuffing is cooled. Fill the vegetables with the stuffing. Do not squeeze too hard as the rice is only half-way cooked and will continue to expand.
- Leave the top parts of the vegetables empty and curl inwards to make a lid.
- Take another pot and in it line up the vegetables side by side closely, holes facing upwards so they do not open. Put the eggplants on the bottom, the peppers on the top.
- Then mix 100 milliliters warm water, a teaspoon of salt and a tea spoon of pomegranate sauce together. And pour this mixture slowly on the stuffed vegetables.
- Cook for about 30 minutes. Taste, if the rice is ready, close the heat. Set aside to cool.
- Serve at room temperatre with plain yogurt or garnish with chopped parsley and drizzle additional pomegranate sauce.