It's an eggplant extravaganza, all on today's show.

Announcer: "Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen" is made possible by... Man: ♪ Do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ [Theme music playing] American, Italian, Indian, Sicilian, French, Lebanese, Japanese, and Chinese, too-- it's all about eggplant made just for you.

Oval and oblong, long and lean, to egg-shaped and exquisite, along with everything in between, eggplants are extraordinary.

From simple and sophisticated to earthy and exotic, eggplants are excellent selections for sauces and spreads, soups and stews, stuffed, and even pickled eggplant, too.

My eggplant extravaganza all starts with a signature starter or side dish called Batenjen Mishwee, a fire-roasted eggplant and garlic smoky and sultry spread that sets up my magnificent main meal internationally known as Sheikh el' Mahshi, my star dish delight of the day showcasing baby Indian eggplant sautéed and stuffed with a mouthwatering meat and pine nut mixture, then blissfully baked away in a tomato base casserole that is bubbly as can be.

Last, but certainly not least, is a specialty, Batenjen b Bayd, eggs and eggplant that is excellent in taste and in texture, too, and I know that you will love all of my eggplant dishes just as much as I do.

Black Beauties, White Beauties, Purple Beauties, too-- it's my eggplant extravaganza made just for you.

It's our eggplant extravaganza today, and I'm so excited because I love eggplant so much, and there are so many delicious dishes in Lebanese and Middle Eastern cuisine that feature the eggplant, and today, I've selected a couple of special ones for you that I'm gonna be sharing with you all today that I think you're gonna just love, and the first one that I'm working on right now is our mezza, or appetizer, our small plate dish called Batenjen Mishwee, and "batenjen" literally just translates to "eggplant," and "mishwee" is "grilled," and that's exactly what we're gonna be doing with these beautiful Graffiti, also known as Zebra, eggplant that are part of the Italian family of eggplants, actually.

You can see this beautiful sort of light-purplish hue with those sort of white streaks running through them, and I think they're just gonna make for a delicious Batenjen Mishwee dish today.

So, what I'm doing is simply sort of puncturing the skin and going through the flesh of the eggplant with the tip of my sharp serrated knife, just like so.

The puncture marks are gonna help the eggplant flesh to roast evenly through.

And...just like that, and now what we're gonna do is we're just gonna simply get them on our hot grill right over here... [Sizzling] and just put them on like that.

So, I'm just gonna let these grill away here.

I'm gonna be turning them, as I mentioned, a couple of times throughout the fire-roasting process, and in the meantime, I want you guys to take a look at Mama's Garden, where we have our eggplant extravaganza front and center for you, and we're gonna learn all about how she grows eggplant.

It's an eggplant extravaganza, right here in Mama's Glorious Garden with Mama!

Hi, Mama.

Hi, Julie.

She's our eggplant expert for today because she knows that I love eggplant so, so much, and every year, she makes sure to plant me all sorts of different types of eggplant.

Yeah.

I focus on lot of varieties.

I do like eggplant myself.

Yes, you do.

Our whole family does, actually-- my sister especially, as well.

Yeah, and it's always a challenge for the eggplants.

They're unusual.

They're different than any other plant you put in your garden.

They need, actually, more tender loving care.

TLC.

Love from Mama to the eggplants.

So, certain eggplants, I can't find them in a nursery as plants, so I start them from seeds before the spring in the greenhouse and wait till they're a little bit mature, and then I don't take them directly to the garden.

I put them in planters, and they seem to do a lot better than putting them directly in the garden, till they're at least maybe a foot, couple of feet tall, and then if I want to, I can, again, transplant them into the garden.

So, Mama, from the greenhouse to the garden, when do we really start to see the eggplants coming up and ready for picking?

It's, like, at the end of July, early August, and they'll produce eggplants till the snow comes.

Ha ha ha!

Thanks, Mama, for your eggplant expertise.

You're welcome.

Isn't Mama a master gardener?

She really does have a green thumb, and I'm so lucky to have her growing all of these glorious goods for us.

OK, so it looks like our Graffiti, or Zebra, eggplant, also part of the Italian family of eggplant, are beautifully charred and gloriously grilled up, as you guys can see, just like that.

Isn't that beautiful?

That's definitely what you're going for.

You see that nice char on them?

And that's actually around the entire eggplant of each one of these.

So, now what we're gonna do is we're simply going to just take our sharp serrated knife and just slice off the end tips, just like that, and then we're gonna slice down the center, just like so.

I have cook's hands, you know, so I can take the heat a little bit, but if you want to let them cool just a little bit, just enough, you know, so that you can work with them, that's OK, too, but it is best to actually scoop up the flesh while they're hot because if they cool too much, then the flesh gets a little bit more tougher.

You know, it makes it harder to scoop up.

Mmm!

Smells so smoky in here.

If you love smoky flavor, too, by the way, you're just gonna love this mezza, this small plate dish, and what we're gonna do first is that we're going to put it into a fine-mesh sieve that I have right over here.

We're just gonna sort of press using the back of our spoon.

Press the flesh down into the fine-mesh sieve because I want to release any liquid, any sort of liquid coming from the eggplant.

It's going to kind of make our finished dish, our Batenjen Mishwee, more substantial, and the other reason is that the cooking liquid that releases from the eggplant tends to be a little bit bitter, so we definitely don't want our eggplant spread to be bitter.

And now we're just going to simply finish this up.

I have some garlic that I've mashed into a nice creamy paste, and this is about 3 cloves of garlic.

Just like that.

And we're also gonna need a little bit of sea salt, about half a teaspoon, and we're gonna get our extra virgin olive oil.

OK. Now we're just gonna get a big fork, just like this, and we're gonna sort of mash it all together.

Kind of mix it together, too.

Once you kind of press all of the flesh down with the back of your fork, you want to just incorporate the olive oil and the garlic and the sea salt evenly throughout all of the eggplant.

We're gonna plate this.

Look how beautiful that looks.

And now we're just going to take a little bit more olive oil, and we're just going to sort of drizzle it right on top, and we're gonna get some freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley, as well.

Gives a nice really sort of refreshing bite to the smokiness.

And if you like, I have another spice that I want to introduce to you all, and it is Aleppo pepper, and it's sort of like crushed red pepper, but it has a much more intense, sort of smokier flavor.

OK. Now we have to give this a try.

I have some warm Khebez, our pocket pita bread, right here.

I'm gonna do a traditional... kind of make it into a little scoop, if you will, right, and just take some of this.

Let's give it a try.

Mmm!

It's delicious.

It's so rich and robust.

It really has such intense flavor because we, you know, basically grilled the eggplant.

You can have even more intense flavor if you fire-roast it out on the grill.

Next up is a magnificent meal that is starring our Indian eggplant.

So, I have begun making our second eggplant dish, which is very extraordinary-- Ha ha!

I can't help myself-- which is our Sheikh el' Mahshi, and it's basically our stuffed Indian eggplant, and it's just delicious.

We're using these small Indian eggplant, as you can see, and they're just so beautifully colored.

Look at the skin.

They're nice and purple-- kind of match my top.

Ha ha ha!

And they have these little cute stems, and the first thing that we're doing, which I've begun already, right before me, is we're basically taking off all of the skin from these Indian eggplants.

So now what we're gonna do is we're just gonna set it on our board, just like that, and we're gonna use the end tip again of our sharp serrated knife, and we're just gonna make a slit going down the center.

We're not gonna go all the way through the Indian eggplant, because we want to be able to hold the mouthwatering meat and pine nut mixture that we're gonna make in just a second.

We just kind of want to get it deep into the flesh without going all the way through, just like that.

I've added about 3 tabs of butter.

We're just gonna let this get nice and hot.

We're gonna let the butter completely melt, and then we're going to start to brown the Indian eggplant in batches.

All right.

I'm gonna turn our heat off, just like that.

I'm gonna shift some things around, and now we are gonna start making our mouthwatering meat and pine nut mixture that's gonna be stuffed into these delicious little eggplants.

I'm gonna get one onion to start with.

We're actually gonna just use our sauté pan that we browned our eggplant in.

[Sizzling] And now we're gonna get our lamb meat to meet the onion.

You can see that I left a little bit of fat, actually, in the lamb meat because when we're making our filling, our meat filling, we want it to have lots of flavor, especially with lamb meat because it's lean, so it's nice that we have a little bit of fat running through.

And if you prefer not to use lamb, then you can certainly use beef.

We want our pan nice and hot because we want the meat to brown up beautifully, so I'm actually just gonna turn it up to high.

Now I'm just gonna season this up.

We're gonna grab our sea salt and our black pepper, and I also have some of our allspice, as well.

How beautiful that looks.

All right.

Now, at the same time, I'm gonna get our other little small sauté pan.

Gonna turn the heat on this because we're going to brown up our pine nuts, or pignoli nuts.

I'm actually gonna have the heat on low because those pine nuts are so delicate, so they brown up really fast, and we're just gonna take about a handful of some pine nuts, just like that.

Guess a couple more than a handful, right?

And we're also gonna season these, too-- just a little bit of salt.

Gonna toss those around.

They're gonna brown up really quickly, so while we're sort of making sure that our meat is completely cooked, these should be finishing up, as well.

OK. Looks like our pine nuts are done.

Look how beautiful those look.

They're nice and lightly golden brown, which is definitely what you want, and our meat is completely cooked at this point, too, so now we're just going to immediately get those into our meat mixture, with all that delicious buttery goodness, too.

Ha ha!

Look at that.

Isn't that beautiful?

We're gonna actually just turn off our heat at this point, and then that's it.

We're just gonna finish it with some freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley, give some greenery to this meat mixture that we have.

Our mouthwatering meat and pine nut mixture is gonna taste absolutely sensational in our little Indian eggplants, and speaking of Indian eggplants, I bet you can guess where I grabbed these from.

Of course, it's with Mama, in Mama's Garden, so I'm gonna take you into the garden so we can get a closer look at how she grew them for me.

So, now we're right here in Mama's Garden with Mama again.

Hi, Mama.

Hello.

We're talking about one of the eggplants that we use all the time in Lebanese and Middle Eastern cooking, and that is our Indian eggplant that we're using today for our star dish of the day, our... Sheikh el' Mahshi.

Yes, and as you can see, they're just growing so beautiful and so healthy right here in the garden.

You know, the eggplant are just sort of dangling right out.

They're like little gems, you know?

Yeah.

As you can see, they start from the flower in here right next to you, and then we have different sizes in here, and this is pretty much almost mature, and you can use it for your Baba Ghanouj or your Batenjen Mishwee... Nice.

Love those recipes.

or any of the dishes that you need, you know.

Yeah.

These little ones-- And these-- these are beautiful.

This is for your Sheikh el' Mahshi.

It's perfect size.

Yeah, it is the right size.

And this one is a little bit small.

Pinky.

Ha ha!

Baby.

Yeah, but for pickling.

Right.

Or a little bit bigger than that.

So, you know, you pick any size that you want, depend on the dish that you're making.

So, Mama, what is the best way to actually pick the eggplant from the plant here?

Well, I actually like to get them with my pruner.

OK.

It's a lot easier to get them that way.

They have little prickly things in here, and that way, you don't damage the plant as much, because it's pretty strong to get them out.

Right.

That's it.

So, that's great, because you don't damage the plant itself, and you definitely don't damage the eggplant, either, and you keep them nice and healthy and intact for cooking all of our recipes that we're making today, and I can't wait to get back into the kitchen, Mama!

OK. Let's go.

OK.

I especially love picking these Indian eggplants in Mama's Garden because I just love how adorable they grow, and what I've started to do is I've actually started to just, sort of with my fingertips, just pull apart the slit that we made before we browned the Indian eggplant.

We want to just open them up a little bit because we're gonna start to fill them with our mouthwatering meat and pine nut mixture.

OK?

So we're gonna just take one of our Indian eggplants, and we're gonna take a little bit of the mixture.

It's just best to sort of stuff it right over the pan of meat here, just like that.

Who would have thought that you could stuff these Indian eggplants like this, right?

Giving you guys some new ideas out there.

I'm just gonna continue to stuff our little Indian adorable eggplants that I have right before me, and then we're going to layer them into our casserole dish.

So, now we are composing our extraordinary eggplant casserole, and I'm just drizzling a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of our pan, as you can see, and I'm gonna take some beautifully finely diced tomatoes.

You could use tomatoes on the vine.

You could also use plum tomatoes or a nice fresh garden tomato, just like so.

OK.

So now we're just gonna get our Indian eggplant, just like so.

We want to kind of nestle them really close to one another.

Ha ha ha!

Nice and tight... just like that.

OK. Look at that.

Beautiful, right?

OK. We're gonna get another layer of our finely diced tomatoes, and we still have some of our mouthwatering meat and pine nut mixture left over, so I'm going to use the rest of this, as well.

So, nothing goes to waste, right, and now I just want to put a little bit more of our allspice, the essences of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg-- just sprinkle some right on top-- and then a little bit of our freshly and finely chopped flat-leaf parsley.

OK.

So now we are going to get this into the oven.

I had the oven preheated at 350 degrees.

It's gonna be for about 25-30 minutes.

So, I've begun our final extraordinary eggplant dish of the day, which is our eggplant and eggs, and in Arabic, we call it Bayd b Batenjen, which basically just means eggplant and eggs.

Ha ha ha!

So, I'm using our White Beauties for these, which I think is gonna make a delicious eggplant and egg dish.

We're gonna get our olive oil.

We're gonna drizzle this into our pan, and we're gonna get our heat on medium to medium-high, and we're gonna start to get our--I'm using a Vidalia onion, but you could use a Spanish yellow onion, or you could also use a red onion, whichever you like, and we're also gonna get our shallots, which I love.

I love cooking with shallots.

It's sort of a cross between an onion and garlic.

They just have a really wonderful flavor to them; a little bit of sweetness, too.

And some garlic.

We're just gonna toss these in the oil, and we just want to get the aromatics a little bit translucent before we add the eggplant in.

Mmm!

All of our aromatics smell so delicious.

They are ready for our eggplant.

Our White Beauties are going in, just like that.

Oh!

I think this is actually an extraordinary dish because it's eggs and eggplant, which you sort of rarely see.

We're gonna salt these, as well, a little bit of sea salt, to make sure we season every layer.

Every ingredient needs some Lebanese love.

Ha ha!

So now I'm turning our heat to low, and we're going to get our eggs involved in this.

Ha ha ha!

So, I have some beautiful brown eggs.

I'm just gonna crack them right over, just like that.

Gonna kind of try to do one in each corner, going around the pan, and then one in the center.

Beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful.

Just a touch of sea salt on each one, and a little bit of freshly ground pepper.

I feel like eggs love pepper, don't they?

And I'm gonna add a little bit of our allspice.

I have that sort of flavor going on in all of our other dishes today, so...

I think it goes really lovely with the eggplant.

OK. Voilà!

Now we are gonna bake these eggs.

Let's get them in the oven.

So, our eggplant and eggs are gonna bake at 350 degrees for approximately 10-12 minutes, and then it's time to finally feast on our extraordinary eggplant dishes.

Yummy!

Yumminess is calling my name today.

Ha ha!

I want to get a lot of that eggplant on my plate, too.

I think I'm gonna go for the egg first.

I'm sort of really anticipating this.

Mmm!

Look at that.

It looks so good, right?

Mmm!

It's just delicious.

I love the aromatics and the white eggplant and the egg is just cooked perfectly, as you guys can see, and now I just want to slice into that Indian eggplant and just kind of scoop up a little bit of the filling.

Mmm!

Those Indian eggplant are so tender.

They have this really delicious sweetness to them, and the meat mixture with the pine nuts and the parsley and the allspice, it just really is sort of like comfort, you know?

It's like a comforting taste.

So, I am so happy that I was able to share all of my extraordinary eggplant dishes with you all today.

I really hope that you make these dishes at home for you to enjoy with your family and friends, and until we cook again, I wish you and yours to always Takloull bil Hanna-- Eat in Happiness.

Cheers, Mama, to our eggplant extravaganza!

Right.

Ha ha ha!

Nice.

Ooh, juicy.

Look at that.

I'll get you two, Mama.

Some tomatoes, too, on that?

There you go.

That looks good.

Thank you.

Oh!

Yummy.

It looks good.

It looks fantastic.

Mama, we made our eggplant extravaganza today.

Yeah, we did.

Ha ha ha!

Mama... Yeah?

We have outdone ourselves again.

With eggplant-- with all the eggplants.

With all the eggplant-- eggplant everywhere.

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"Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen" is made possible by... Man: ♪ Do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪