hello this is chef john from food wishes dot-com with turkish stuffed eggplant
that's right i'm gonna show you how to make carne ark although in the spirit of
full disclosure i only found out this dish existed like an hour before i
started filming and i didn't really use a recipe and only did about 15 minutes
of research but despite all that these came out amazingly well oh and by the
way in case you're wondering the name actually translates to split bellies
which as you can see or at least will see is a very accurate name so with that
let's go ahead get started by prepping our eggplant and for this you're going
to need four equally sized hopefully male eggplant and no eggplants really
don't have genders but when you're buying these what you want to look for
is eggplant that have small round indentations versus larger longer slot
like indentations which tend to have more seeds so when you're choosing these
remember you want dots not slots in to prep these what we'll do is pull off the
leaves and then what we'll do next is take our peeler and make exactly four
peels equally spaced apart and this is not
just for appearances sake okay these equally spaced peels are one of the keys
to the whole operation and that's because the peel on the bottom is gonna
help these sit flat and the peel on the top is eventually where we're gonna
split our bellies and then what we'll do once that's been accomplished all for is
go ahead and transfer those into this baking dish into which i've brushed in a
little bit of olive oil and then what we're gonna do is pop these into the
center of a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes to an hour or until they just
start to soften okay we don't want them too firm but we also don't want them
totally collapsing so when they're done they should look a little something like
this and they should feel sort of soft and spongy but they should not be
collapsing when we press them all right we're not trying to make baba ghanoush
here and then because i probably shouldn't have done it when they went in
the oven I decided to brush these with a little bit of olive oil to kind of shine
up the outside and then what we're gonna do is let these sit until they're cool
enough to handle at which point we will honor the name and split the bellies and
what we can do while those are cooling is go ahead and make our filling which
I'm going to start by sauteing a large onion in some olive oil in this skillet
set over medium-high heat and as usual add a nice big
inch assaults and usually we'll saute these onions until they just start to
turn translucent but here my instincts told me to go a little bit further until
these onions not only softened and started to turn translucent but also
until they started to take on a little bit of golden brown color alright for
whatever reason I just thought these should have a little more of a sweeter
profile so that's what I did I cooked those stirring over medium-high heat
until they looked a little something like this
at which point I'm gonna add a pound of ground lamb and you know the drill once
we add our meat we're gonna sort of break it up with our spatula into nice
small pieces and we'll continue doing that till it's as fine as we want and it
eventually starts to brown up and even though I'm using lamb here
I believe beef is also a popular choice and as far as the technique goes I
really think you could do this with any ground meat except ironically turkey I
just don't think it has enough fat for something like this but anyway no matter
what we're using we'll go ahead and brown up our meat at which point we'll
add most of the rest of the ingredients including some crushed or finely minced
garlic some freshly ground black pepper a little touch of ground cumin or cumin
I also wanted to sneak in a little touch of cinnamon which i think is always
amazing with lamb anyway we will continue on with a touch of cayenne as
well as a pinch of dried rosemary and speaking of herb I believe traditionally
we're supposed to use some freshly chopped parsley in this but that didn't
happen and then we will finish this up with a squeeze of tomato paste which I
think you should always buy in tube form since we typically just need a little
bit at a time and then last but not least a generous application of salt
okay rule of thumb about a teaspoon per pound of meat and then of course we will
adjust from there and we'll go ahead and stir all that together and cook that for
about two minutes to sort of wake up our spices at which point we can add and
stir in our last major ingredient and that would be a whole bunch of die sweet
and/or Hot Chili Peppers and I used a combination of Anaheim poblano and
Fresno okay so I went with an array of mild medium and hot but whatever you're
into is gonna work including some just regular old basic bell peppers and all
we're gonna do here is cook this for a few more minutes until those peppers
just barely get tender okay keep in mind this mixture is gonna
cook once we stuff it into the eggplants and it bakes so we probably don't want
our peppers disintegrating at this point so I just cooked mine for about three or
four minutes at which point we're simply gonna turn off the heat and let this
cool down for about ten minutes or so before adding the final optional
ingredients a handful of finely grated sheep's milk cheese okay I forget the
exact name of the one I used since Michelle bought it but it was very
similar to pecorino and once that's been stirred in our filling is basically done
although if you're real pro of course you're gonna taste this and adjust for
seasoning and then assuming our eggplants are now cool enough to handle
we can go ahead and split these bellies by cutting directly through the middle
of that part we peeled on the top but don't go all the way through to the
bottom all right maybe just like three-quarters
of the way and then using two spoons we can kind of pull that apart which is
gonna give us plenty of space to stuff in our filling and by the way if it's
cool enough this is probably easier if you use your fingers unless of course
you're trying to use a camera and a tripod then this wounds are probably
easier and by the way one of my four eggplant was female and did have more
seeds so there you go and I did scoop some of them out since they can tend to
be a little bit bitter but anyway we're gonna split and spread open the bellies
of our eggplant at which point we can spoon in our filling and actually
considered sprinkling some salt on the inside before filling these but I
thought my lamb mixture had enough although in hindsight it didn't and I
could have used a touch more so something to keep in mind but anyway
we're gonna go ahead and fill these as evenly as possible
and as we do we kind of want to press it in and pack it down but be careful don't
do it too hard otherwise these could burst open and then one stuffed I
decided to decorate the top with some extra pepper strips which is something I
noticed a few people doing during my exhaustive few minutes of research but
of course this step is optional so you decide I mean you are after all the
Nelly Furtado of your split bellies bravado but I did have some extra
peppers and I do think it makes it look nicer if not more aerodynamic I wonder
how you say racing stripes in Turkish but anyway we'll decorate those as we so
choose and then I finished the top so a little drizzle of olive oil because it
felt right and then one last thing before we bake
these I'm gonna pour in about a cup of chicken broth so everything stays nice
and moist and we'll have a little something-something to spoon over later
and that's it these are not ready to pop back into our 400 degree oven for about
45 minutes or so or until our eggplant is very soft and tender okay it's really
gonna depend on the size so be sure to give it the old polka polka with a knife
to check and that should pierce the flesh with virtually no resistance and
if it doesn't put him back in but mine were perfectly tender so I went ahead
and served up and spooned down some of those drippings and that my friends for
a first attempt did not look too bad and I'm happy to report the taste and
texture were also really good all right I'll probably tweak a few
things the next time I make him like for example salting the inside a little but
my eggplant was beautifully tender and creamy and the filling very flavorful
although I've since learned since filming I was supposed to serve this
with rice and yogurt sauce so I will definitely be trying it that way next
time and probably whip up a batch of our tzatziki sauce but anyway all know I
thought this was very successful and not just a specific recipe but the technique
in general all right as I was enjoying this I thought up a couple dozen
variations I love to try again none of which involve Turkey but anyway that's
it my attempt at making carne Arak it's always a lot of fun trying a new recipe
for a lot of reasons first and foremost is that there's really no pressure it
has to come out great and it really is always more enjoyable to cook without
fear okay we should all do that more often so I'm gonna go ahead and do a
little more research and maybe pick up a few tips in the comment section but in
the meantime I really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to food
which is calm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as
always enjoy
you