Patlıcan Balığı (Breaded Eggplant) Recipe
I was watching a Youtube video recently. A video shot by a couple from different countries and cultures. The man said; one of the biggest problems when two people from two different cultures live in the same house is breakfast. I usually prefer to eat this in the mornings and my wife eats this, and then the video went back to its main subject.
Every region in Turkey is like a different country with a different culture, so you do not need to marry someone from a different country to experience these differences, it is sufficient to find someone from a different region. Although we do not feel such differences with my husband about the food, we have experienced funny things about the different names given to the dishes in our home towns from time to time. Yasin once described the ekmek balığı (bread fish) he ate in his childhood, for example. Bread fish is such beautiful, bread fish is delicious, my mother used to make bread fish for us, etc. I said what is this bread fish, tell me and I can make for you. Here he said, you dip stale bread into beaten eggs with milk and fry them. I said, this is yumurtalı ekmek. He said no it is bread fish. I have to admit that we argued for a while about this, but over the years we've understood the pointlessness of such discussions and stopped those arguments.
Many dishes have been known and made in many different geographies with slight differences and different names for centuries. There is nothing as meaningless as saying you know its name wrongly, and you make it wrong. They make it that way, just accept. There is no need for more reaction. For years, we have been taught that the Greeks stole our yogurt or they stole our baklava, for example. Different varieties of yogurt and baklava are known and eaten not only in Greece but also in many regions and countries from the Balkans to the Middle East. Many more dishes such as borek and sarma can be added to this list. If we have known and made these dishes for hundreds of years, so are they. What shall we do? Should we say you don't eat baklava anymore, ok? Isn't it possible? I agree.
If we go back to our main subject ... The nem of the dish patlıcan balığı means eggplant fish. It seems that in Turkish cuisine, naming things that are covered with eggs and fried as fish is not special to a single recipe. Especially the fact that it comes from the Black Sea cuisine, where fish is consumed a lot, seems to have a great effect on this name.
Enjoy ...
Preparation
- Peel the eggplants, cut them long and take into a pot,
- Add enough water to cover and salt to to taste and simmer until tender,
- Strain the boiled eggplant slices and leave them in a strainer until cool,
- In a deep plate, beat the egg with addition of little salt and spread the corn meal into a large plate,
- Pour 3-4 mm deep oil in a small pan and heat,
- Dip the eggplants first in the egg, then cover with corn meal, fry them in hot oil and take them into a strainer,
- Serve hot, accompanied with plain yogurt.
Enjoy your meal...