• 1/2 cup rice, raw
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 cup olive oil, or more if needed
• 4 larger, equal sized purple eggplants
• 1/2 lb ground lamb
• 1 yellow onion, finally chopped
• 1 finally chopped pepper (green, red, yellow-your choice)
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 Tbsp dried mint
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp hot red pepper flakes or to taste
• 1 tsp of salt or to taste
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
• hand-full of freshly grated hard cheese (parmegane)
• handful parsley, chopped
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• fresh mint to garnish, optional

1. Cooking the rice. Cook 1/2 cup of rice in 1 cup of water. You can add bay leaves if you wish. Set aside when done.

2. Baking the eggplants. Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Wash eggplants and put them on an oiled baking sheet. Prick them with a fork in about 6-8 places, half inch deep to prevent them from exploding in your oven. Coat them with some olive oil with a brush. Bake them for 45-60 minutes or until they are nice and soft, so you can put the blade of a knife through easily. You don’t want them to be hard but they shouldn’t collapse either. Once they start becoming soft, keep an eye on them. When ready take them out and let them cool. Set aside.

3. Sauteing the vegetables. Sauté the onion in oil, add the chopped peppers and continue sautéing for about 5 minutes. Add spices (mint, coriander, cumin, paprika) and crushed garlic. Stir for 1 minute. Add 1 crushed tomato, stir. Cook for about 10 minutes or until tomatoes make a nice sauce. Set aside.

4. Preparing the lamb. In a separate pan, warm up some oil and sauté the lamb quickly for about 10 minutes. If lamb is not fatty enough, you might have to add more olive oil. Take off heat.

5. Preparing the stuffing. Put the cooked lamb into a larger bowl. Add rice, vegetable mixture, salt, parsley and hot pepper flakes. It is optional but I also added graded cheese. Mix. (The stuffing can be made a day ahead).

6. Preheat oven to 400 Fahrenheit.

7. Preparing the eggplants. Gently cut a slit in the middle down from the top of a whole eggplant. Take out the seeds. You can use the seeds to make babaganoush or just simply discard them. Just like its name suggests, stuff the inside of the eggplants, their bellies with the stuffing that was prepared earlier. You can put a little graded cheese and a thin slice of tomato on the top. Put the eggplants in a baking dish. Pour boiling water into dish about 1 inch deep.

7. Baking the eggplants. Place dish into the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

8. Remove from the oven. Let the eggplants cool. Cut off the ends before serving.

9. Serve warm with cacik and freshly ground black pepper. Garnish with fresh mint leaves.

• 1 1/2 cups of yoghurt
• 1 longer English, slicing cucumber
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 Tbsp of vinegar
• 2 Tbsp of olive oil
• 1 Tbsp of dried mint
• fresh mint

• Peel and slice the cucmber. Place the slices in a bowl, salt and let it sit for 15 minutes. Strain, squeeze out and discard the liquid.
• In a separate bowl mix together all the other ingredients, stir well. Put in the cucumbers and gently stir mix them in.
• Garnish with fresh mint. Serve with the eggplants.