Roasted Eggplant Salad (Patlican Salatasi)

This recipe is my first submission for AWED (A Worldly Epicurean Delight ), brought by DK at Chef in You and hosted by Janet from the Taste Space. I can't express how excited I was when I spotted Janet's post featuring Turkish Cuisine! For a culinary quest, the Turkish Cuisine is a truly interesting and, distinctive one. Discovering Turkish cuisine is just like discovering a secret treasure.  With abundant use of vegetables and the legacy of an Imperial Kitchen, there's much more to Turkish cuisine than grills.

As Neset Eren stated  in The Art of Turkish Cooking: “Many of the well-known national cuisines rely on one basic element. For instance, French cuisine is based on the sauce. Pasta forms the essence of the Italian cuisine. There is however, no single dominant feature in the Turkish kitchen. Meats, fish, vegetables pastries, and fruit are cooked in an infinite variety of ways.”

The eggplant said to be the country's most beloved vegetable and there are at least forty ways to prepare eggplant alone. Rosted eggplant salad is great as a light summer time meal or a side dish.

Ingredients:

4 eggplants (The  Turkish, Italian, Chinese and Japanese aubergine\eggplant varieties,  work best for this dish)
2-3 long hot peppers, or banana peppers ( I really like it with Poblano peppers)
1 (15 oz) jar roasted red peppers or you can roast 2-3 red peppers
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1 medium red onion, petite dcied
2 cloves of garlic, minced
6-7 tbsp of vinegar
3-4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Roast eggplants on a grill, or in oven at 450F. (if you like you can roast tomatoes along with eggplants for 4-5 minutes or add them raw)

2. Let them cool first. Then peel eggplants and remove the seeds. Then finely chopp them.

3.In a bowl mix crushed garlic, and eggplants. Add diced pepper,  red onion, tomatoes and parsley.

4. In a small bowl, mix vinegar, olive oil, and salt. Add this on vegetables.

5. Stir to combine.Salt and pepper to taste, and enjoy!