Karnıyarık is the hard working older sister to lazy little sister Moussaka, because considerably more effort and refinement goes into putting together this eggplant dish which is "the split stomach" in Turkish. Karnıyarık should always be eaten with plain white Turkish pilaf, for which you can find a pretty decent recipe here.

The image that I have put on the top of this post is not strictly accurate. The genuine article should not have a melted cheese topping, although one des come across it from time to time. Real Karnıyarık looks like the images below, from which you can see a properly cooked Karnıyarık is not too photogenic. But, while my blogger self wanted to show the real thing, exactly how it looks, when it came to choosing the image my graphic designer self took over and I ended up using a not quite correct image for the simple reason that it looked better. :-D


INGREDIENTS

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For eggplants: 5 eggplants 5 tablespoons olive oil Filling: 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 small onion, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 200g/ 7oz ground beef ¼ cup finely chopped green pepper

½ cup finely chopped tomatoes 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon black pepper ½ cup parsley, finely chopped Sauce: 1 and ½ cups hot water 2 tablespoon tomato paste

INSTRUCTIONS

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