Mirza Ghasemi | smoked eggplants and tomatoes
Mirza Ghasemy is a very famous Gilani (a province in the north of Iran) dish.
When “Shomal” (or the North of Iran) is mentioned, not only all Iranians, but also many people who have traveled to Iran, remember their memories there, next to the Caspian Sea, eating Shomali (Northern) food!
Mirza Ghasemi
The main ingredients of this super easy to make dish are tomatoes and eggplants. Make sure Mirza Ghasemi is much more flavorful than you think and it will make you want second servings of it!
Ingredients
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 6 eggplants
- 2 eggs
- 2 tomatoes
- Oil as much as required
- Salt and pepper as much as required
Instructions
- After being washed, cleaned and dried, the eggplants need to be roasted over fire. It can be done using the flame of the gas burner, a barbecue, or fire itself. During this process, the skin of the eggplants need to be burned and the inner parts of them must be softer (Remember that if you are not a fan of the smoky taste, you can simply fry the eggplants). When roasted, peel the eggplants and mash them completely.
- Put some water in a small pan. Once it starts boiling, add the tomatoes. They shouldn’t be there for along time, give them enough time to become softer and easier to peel. Then peel and chop the tomatoes. Meanwhile, peel and grate the cloves of the garlic.
- Preheat a pan and some oil (in it). Stir fry the grated garlic and then add the tomatoes. Stir fry the tomatoes for a short while and add the mashed eggplants. Keep stir frying the ingredients and add some salt and pepper. After a while, the water will be less and the ingredients will look oily.
- This stage is not necessary, but if you want to follow it, make sure that you will do it before adding the eggs. To make the dish more beautiful, you can stir fry some tomato paste and then add it to the other ingredients.
- When then water seems to be completely gone, add the eggs and wait for them to cook.
Serving and topping Mirza Ghasemi
- Use some slices of tomato, leafs of fresh vegetables and walnuts to top Mirza Ghasemi.
- This dish is originally looked at as an appetizer in the north of Iran, but in many other cities people serve and eat this as the main dish. It is usually served with Persian Sangak bread and Sabzi Khordan. Sometimes, people serve Mirza Ghasemi with rice, too.
Tips for having a better Mirza Ghasemi!
- You can barbecue the tomatoes just like the eggplants, and peel them finely, then grate them. Then add them to the eggplants. You can also place the tomatoes in a boiling water for several times (better to be 10 minutes). Then peel them easily while they are parcooked.
- If you want to garnish your traditional mirza qasemi, just use a jelly or cake mold. The appearance would be awesome by that.
- Remember to soak the eggplants in salty water or just simply sprinkle some salt on them. The bitter taste will just go away.
I do not like the taste of eggplants when they are cooked on a flame or when they are barbecued. what can I do instead?
you can fry the eggplants instead.