Eggplant Salad

This is deeeeelicious! My husband raves about this salad.

In Israel, it's all about the salads. Not like lettuce salads, though. They are more like small bowls of random salads and dips, like cooked beets and peppers and tomatoes. My neighbor's main dish Friday night is her eggplant dips. She spends hours making different dips made from eggplants/chatzilim, and the punch line is that she doesn't even like eggplant! She makes them for her husband and boys, bless her.

In any case, whenever she makes a bit too much, she'll send one of her boys down with a small bowl of dip for us. She's very thoughtful in that way. Usually it's shalosh seudos time when shabbos is about done but the dips are not. One Friday night they brought down this salad and we devoured it. It was that good. Then a few weeks later we ate at another Israeli family home and they served the exact same salad. At that point we had to have it too!

I searched the grocery stores and could not find a dip resembling the one we had been served, so I called my neighbor and got the recipe. It's not the healthiest and it does take time, but for shabbos both those things are permissible in my book!

Eggplant Salad:

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 25 minutes

Total time: 30 minutes

Yields: Enough for a crowd

1 small/medium sized eggplant (depending on much you want to make), cut into thin circles

1/2 yellow/red/or orange pepper cut into small little pieces (see photo)

2 cloves garlic, cut into thin circles

Oil

1 teaspoon Vinegar

salt and pepper

1. Heat about 2 inches of oil in large frying pan

2. Once oil is sizzling, place eggplant circles in the pan. They should not overlap or be on top of each other. You will need to do several shifts, depending on the size of your frying pan, until you finish frying all your circles.

3. Eggplant circles should be slightly browned before you flip it to the other side. Once the other side is browned you could remove the circle onto a plate with a paper towel, to absorb excess oil. Repeat with remaining eggplant.

4. Once you are finished frying all your eggplant circles, place them in a container. Sprinkle with salt and paper, vinegar, pepper pieces, and garlic circles

5. To be served with plenty of challah!