Makdous - Preserved stuffed baby eggplant

Oh are you in for a treat!

I first had Makdous about 15 years ago. My aunt Orna in Israel made it for me. Once I tasted it I couldn't get the flavor out of my head. It haunted me. In graduate school, I stalked a woman who owned a Jordanian restaurant and begged her for her family recipe, which she gave me. This recipe is kind of a mix between my aunt's and the woman at Petra Cafe in Monterey, CA (wish I could remember her name!) It takes two days of work and your fingers will smell like garlic for a week.

Just a note- this dish is not for picky eaters. The flavor is intense, sharp, funky. You've never tasted anything like it. It's not super easy to make either, but if you are like me, you will be HOOKED and everything else in the world will taste bland and boring after your first makdous.

OK...

I haven't made this dish in about 2 years because it's quite hard to find baby eggplant, but I found some gorgeous ones at the Petworth farmer's market in Washington, DC the other day and got excited.

I used:

18 baby eggplants
About 1 cup of raw walnuts
2 whole heads of garlic
1 Tablespoon of Kosher salt
Hot green chili pepper, thinly sliced
Olive Oil, lots!


DAY 1

First, I cut the stem off the eggplant carefully to keep as much of the eggplant as possible - they are small to begin with, so don't take off too much length.

Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil.  Put the eggplants in and boil them for 10 minutes. I place a small plate in the pot to make sure all the eggplants are under water. They will look wrinkly when they are done.

Take a small knife and make a slit in each eggplant. The eggplants are very soft so be careful not to cut them through. It should look like a pouch.

Rub a little salt into each pouch and drain in a colander over a bowl in the refrigerator over night. Eggplants have bitterness that is stored in the liquid. The salt helps to get that liquid out and get rid of the bitter taste. This time I put 2 small plates on top of the eggplants so they are being squeezed and all the liquid gets out.

DAY 2

Take the eggplants out of the fridge.



Peel two whole heads of garlic and squeeze all the cloves into a bowl.I use a garlic press for speed and to make sure I get all the garlic out.

Pound the walnuts into tiny pieces. I put the walnuts into a ziplock bag and use a rolling pin to pound and roll them into tiny pieces.

Mix the garlic and walnuts together with one tablespoon Kosher salt and enough olive oil to bind it all nicely (about a tablespoon). I use my hands to mix it all up, since they already smell like garlic from peeling two heads!

Once it's all mixed up, put a heaping teaspoon of the mixture into each eggplant in the pouch. Use your fingers to mush the inside of the eggplant flesh a bit and get more of the filling inside.

Once all the eggplants are stuffed, arrange them tightly into a sterilized (boiled for 10 minutes) jar. Insert a few slices of the chili pepper between layers. This will infuse into the oil and add a subtle spicy flavor.

Carefully pour a nice olive oil into each jar, covering all the eggplant. Use a spoon, chopstick, or other long utensil to gently move the eggplant around, letting the oil get into every nook and cranny. Be careful not to poke the eggplant! Add more olive oil if the eggplant is no longer covered.

Label and date the jars. I use these great labels made by Ball that actually wash off, so you don't have to worry about picking them off later and ruining the jar with little sticky bits.

Yay! You did it! And your reward will be ready in 5 days. Leave the jars outside the fridge and watch them. If the olive oil settles and the eggplant is not covered all the way, add more olive oil.

After 5 days, you can open them up. Take out a makdous, and take a bite. Let the oil drip all over your chin (it's a MESSY dish) and just enjoy the divine flavor. You can serve a few sliced up if you want to be more civilized, but any makdous connoisseur will tell you that the only real way to eat it is with your fingers. (Wear an old ratty shirt that you don't care about).

As long as the olive oil stays above the eggplants, you don't need to refrigerate these and they will last up to a year!  If you're brave enough to attempt this, please let me know what you think!