Mediterranean Eggplant Stew With Chickpeas is one of the Lebanese/Mediterranean comfort foods. Traditionally it is served with Lebanese peta bread, and some fresh veggies on the side. My favorite fresh vegetable to serve with this dish are Italian sweet or spicy green peppers along with some fresh onions.
This dish brings a lot of memories for me. We often made this dish during the olive harvest season.
It is a very easy dish. During olive harvest season, every minute of the day is precious. The key is to make the easiest dishes that you possibly can because you do not want to be wasting your time on cooking.
Mediterranean Eggplant and Chickpea Stew is not only an easy dish, but it is healthy, vegan, and comforting. It is one of my favorite Lebanese vegan dishes.
Preparing the eggplants
Traditionally, the eggplants in this dish are fried before they are introduced to the dish. I changed this dish to make it super healthy.
Eggplant is like a sponge. Whatever oil you introduce to it, it will absorb it. I personally, try to avoid a saturated fat diet. It is not to say that we never eat fried food, but we try to minimize it as much as we can.
Before heading into how to cook the eggplant, I would like to talk a little about preparing the eggplant to be cooked first.
As you probably know and have experienced, eggplant tends to have a tough outer skin. I love eggplant skin, but I think too much of it in this dish can be a bit overwhelming, and perhaps hazardous since it is not easy to chew when it’s in big pieces.
My preferred method to preparing it, and the way how mamma taught me, is to peel it into a striped eggplant where you still have some skin, but not too much. Then we will be cubing the eggplants into 2 inch cubes.
Instead of frying the eggplant as the traditional recipe would suggest, we are going to roast it. This instantly eliminates tons of unhealthy fat from this dish. Whatever fat that is left, is to introduce a nice texture and flavor to the dish.
You will need to sprinkle the eggplant with some salt, and some extra virgin olive oil. Mix it all together. Place it on a roasting pan, and bake at 400 F for 20 minutes
Preparing the base flavor
Onion and garlic are definitely one of the main ingredients in the Mediterranean cuisine. Almost every Mediterranean Recipe has them as the base flavor.
So while the eggplant is getting roasted in the oven, you can get to dicing the onion and garlic. Make sure to leave the garlic pieces in big chunks. Also, crushing the garlic slightly before chopping helps release some of its oils out which intensifies the flavor of the dish.
You will then sauté the onion and garlic together in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil on medium to low heat until slightly browned around the edges.
Fresh or canned tomatoes
For a better taste, I prefer fresh. I find that it has a much better flavor than the canned tomatoes in this dish. But one cannot always have fresh tomatoes, or may not have the time to dice said fresh tomatoes, hence, you can also use canned diced tomatoes. However, my personal preference is always go fresh.
What type of chickpeas should I use
For the chickpeas, you can either use canned chickpeas, or homecooked chickpeas.
If you want to cook dried chickpeas and then add them to your dish, make sure to soak them the night before. You can add in a little bit of baking soda to the chickpeas while they are being soaked. This helps the chickpeas to cook a lot faster.
The next day, simply rinse the chickpeas, drain them, add them to a pot, cover them with some water, and cook them for about 45 minutes.
Keep in mind that we will be adding the chickpeas to the Eggplant Stew, so you’ll need them to be just a little bit firm, but not too firm.
If they were too soft, they would simply dissolve into the stew. So check on them every now and then while they are being cooked to prevent them from overcooking.
After the chickpeas have reached the desired firmness, make sure to not allow them to sit in the hot water that they got cooked in for too long, otherwise, they might get too soft.
The finishing touch
After sautéing the onion and garlic, and after the eggplants have been roasted, you can now add in the rest of the ingredients.
I like to add in the eggplants at the end to make sure they don’t get smooched.
Add in the cooked and drained chickpeas, diced tomatoes, diced jalapeno, spices, salt, roasted eggplants and water.
Bring all these beautiful ingredients to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to low and allow everything to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
How to serve this dish
You can serve this dish with some flat rice bread, Gluten free sourdough bread, or over a bed of rice.
My favorite way of eating it is simply like a soup or stew with some Italian green pepper, and some fresh onion.
More delicious Mediterranean dishes for you to try
Mediterranean Rice Pilaf With Chicken
Gluten Free Mediterranean Eggplant Stew With Chickpeas
Equipment
- Medium Heavy bottom stockpot
- Roasting pan
- Wooden Spoon
- Chopping board
- Sharp knife
- Measuring Spoons
- Measuring cups
- Spatula
Ingredients
- 2 large eggplants partially peeled and cubed into 2-inch cubes
- 8 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tsp salt plus salt to taste
- 1 large onion diced
- 1 cup precooked and drained chickpeas
- 4 diced tomatoes or 1 ½ cups diced tomatoes
- 10 cloves of garlic largely diced
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 1 jalapeno or chili pepper diced, or a dash of cayenne pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 cups water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 F.
- Place eggplant cubes onto a roasting pan. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt. Drizzle the eggplants with 5 tablespoons olive oil. Give everything a quick mix, and place it into the lower rack of the preheated oven for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, Sauté the onions and garlic in 2 to 3 tablespoon olive oil on medium heat.
- Add the cooked and drained chickpeas, diced tomatoes, diced jalapeno, black pepper roasted eggplants, salt to taste, and water.
- Bring to a gentle boil, reduce heat to low, cover it, and allow it to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Serve with Flat rice bread, gluten free sourdough bread, or over a bed of rice with some fresh vegetables.
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