International Recipes
Eggplant Spread (Baklazhannaia Ikra)
Serve this very cold with highly-flavored breads.
Yield: about 2 cups
Ingredients
- 1 (1 pound) eggplant
- 1 medium green bell pepper
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 2 large cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1/4 cup tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- Cocktail pumpernickel rye bread or black bread
Instructions
- Prick eggplant 3 or 4 times with fork.
- Wrap green pepper in aluminum foil.
- Place eggplant and green pepper in shallow baking dish.
- Bake at 400 degrees F until eggplant is very soft, about 35 minutes; cool.
- Remove skin from eggplant and seeds from green pepper; chop eggplant and green pepper.
- Cook and stir onion and garlic in oil in 10-inch skillet over medium heat until onion is tender.
- Stir in eggplant, green pepper and remaining ingredients except bread. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes.
- Place mixture in blender container. Cover and blend on high speed, stopping blender occasionally to scrape sides, until smooth, about 1 minute.
- Cover and refrigerate until very cold, at least 4 hours.
- Serve with bread.