PALESTINIAN & LEVANTINE RECIPES • ENGLISH / العربية
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mezze / preserve
Makdous
This is the pantry classic: baby eggplants salted from the inside, drained for hours, then stuffed with walnuts and garlic before being sealed under oil. It reads exactly like the bridge between a pickle jar and a winter breakfast mezze.
Prep 50 min · Cook 15 min · Total 65 min · Difficulty: medium
Servings
12
Ingredients
2 kg
small eggplants
salt — for salting the insides
200 g
walnuts — ≈ 1 uqiya (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 head
garlic
oil — enough to cover the stuffed eggplants
Method
1
Boil the small eggplants only until they begin to soften, then drain and cool them. Slit each one in a cross without separating it fully, rub salt into the inside, and leave them draining for many hours until the excess water is gone.
2
Chop the walnuts into medium pieces, pound the garlic, and mix the two together. Fill each eggplant with the walnut-garlic mixture.
3
Pack the stuffed eggplants tightly into a jar, cover them completely with oil, and seal. Give them time to mature before serving as part of a mezze spread.
Notes
The page is explicit that the drained eggplants need more than ten hours before stuffing, which is the real makdous step to respect.
كيتي كتن (Kitty Katan) — الكتاب الحديث لعمل الحلويات وفن الطهي
sufra daima
Palestinian & Levantine cooking, in English and Arabic.
Sufratkum ‘amira · May your table be full — what you say when the food goes down.