Friday, July 20, 2007

Main course with rice, minced meat and burnt eggplant

Tonight our sabbath meal consisted of rice, minced meat in a tomato sauce and eggplant burnt in the oven. Four to eight servings.

1) Eggplant
Cut the eggplant in two halves. Cover them with tin foil and burn them in the oven for at least 60 minutes at a temperature of 275 degrees.

2) Rice
1 table spoon olive oil
1 big onion
salt
white wine
1 clove of garlic
1 cup of brown rice

Cut the onion and stir fry it for 3 minutes in the oil at medium heat. Add some salt, the rice and keep stirring. Add half a glass of white wine and stir some more. Add two cups of water, cover and boil. When the rice boils add a whole clove of garlic. When the rice is done (after 20 to 30 minutes) stir the rice with a fork. The garlic will have gone soft and you can take it out or - what I prefer - mix it with the whole bowl of rice by stirring.

3) Minced meat in tomato sauce
500 gram minced meat
1 table spoon olive oil
2 tea spoons ground caraway
1 tea spoon ground cardamom
2 handful of fresh basil leaves
1 tea spoon fresh thyme
3 tea spoons fresh sage
4 zucchinis
2 green paprikas
1 dry red hot pepper
2 bay leaves
10 cloves of garlic
3 packages of tomato paste
salt
black pepper

Mix the meat with a pinch of salt, the caraway and the cardamom. Fry it in the pan with the oil. Add the red pepper and the bay leaves. Stir. Cut and add the zucchini and the paprika. Cut 5 cloves of garlic into fine slices and add to the meat. Then squeeze the other 5 and add also. When the zucchini is done, roughly cut the fresh leaves and add. Simmer for 5 minutes and add the tomato paste. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Take the eggplant out of the oven. Cut the halves in two quarts and serve on a plate next to the rice and the sauce.