İmam bayıldı
Karnıyarık’s sibling: no meat, olive oil, eaten cold. The quantity of onion is not excessive — this is a dish about onion.
Vegetable dishes · Turkish · For guests · Seasonal · Vegan · Weekend batch
- Preparation
- 30 min
- Cooking
- 50 min
- Resting
- 120 min
- Difficulty
- Practised hand
- Cost
- Cheap
- Season
- Summer, Autumn
The name means "the imam fainted", and whether it was at the quantity of olive oil or at the taste has been argued for four hundred years. The rule of the olive-oil vegetable dishes is at its clearest here: it is not eaten hot. As it cools the oil partly sets and coats the vegetables, and only then does the texture come together.
Method
- Peel the aubergines in stripes, soak them twenty minutes in a litre of water with 20 g of salt, then dry them THOROUGHLY.
- Slice the onions into thin half-moons: there is as much onion here as aubergine.
You will need: A wide pan · A covered pan or oven dish
-
Fry the dried aubergines in a third of the oil, three minutes a side, until soft, and lift them out.
Look for Golden brown, and leaving no large oil stain on the paper.
Why The salted soak fills the cell spaces so the aubergine does not drink oil, and the drying matters too: wet aubergine spits and never colours.If it went wrong
If it drank oil the soak was skipped. Ten minutes on a tray at 180 °C takes some of it back out.
Frying dynamics Surface water is flashing to steam and pushing outward — that is the shield keeping the oil out. no way back
-
Soften the onions in half the remaining oil for FIFTEEN MINUTES, until completely soft and sweet.
Look for They should turn translucent and shrink to about a third, without colouring.
Why The flavour of this dish is the onion, and the fifteen minutes cannot be shortened. Its sulphur compounds break down with heat and leave sugar behind; stop at five and you are eating raw onion.Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back
If you want a crust, do not stay under 140 °C. Food cooks at this heat but never colours.
-
Add the garlic, half the tomato, the sugar and the salt for five minutes; off the heat, stir in the parsley.
Look for The filling should be moist rather than wet.
Why The sugar balances the tomato’s acid: a dessertspoon across four portions sweetens nothing and takes the edge off. The parsley goes in off the heat so it keeps its colour and smell.Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back
Salt · 0.39% Low. Everything reads flat and nothing steps forward.
If you want a crust, do not stay under 140 °C. Food cooks at this heat but never colours.
-
Split the aubergines, fill them, top them with the rest of the tomato and the peppers, pour the water, lemon and remaining oil into the base, cover, and cook twenty-five minutes on a low flame.
Look for A fork should meet no resistance, and a glossy orange sauce should remain in the base.
Why Under a lid the steam finishes the aubergine rather than more oil, and the olive oil works into the vegetables while that happens. The liquid stays in the base and must not cover the aubergine.Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back
Salt · 0.34% Low. Everything reads flat and nothing steps forward.
-
Take it off, leave the lid OFF and cool it for two hours, to room temperature.
Look for Cooled, the sauce should have lost its runniness without setting to a jelly.
Why As it cools the oil partly sets and coats the vegetables, and only then does the texture come together. With the lid on, condensation drips back and waters it down. An olive-oil dish finishes its flavour cold.Salt · 0.34% Low. Everything reads flat and nothing steps forward.
This recipe was run through the engine step by step — what goes in when, and at what temperature and for how long. The reactions above come from that run.
peak 180 °C · 177 minutes · engine 1.0.0 · confidence low
What can go wrong here
The aubergine drank all the oil⌄
What happened
Aubergine flesh is a sponge with air trapped between the cells. Hot oil fills those pockets within seconds — it is not absorbed so much as inhaled.
By the numbers
Salt it for 20 minutes and squeeze out the water. Or skip oil altogether: at 200 °C in the oven the cells collapse before they can take any on.
Without a thermometer
After salting, press it between two plates with a weight on top to draw the water faster. In a hurry, soak it in milk for 10 minutes: the milk fills the pores so there is no room for oil. Pat it properly dry before frying — wet aubergine spits and drinks even more.
After the heat goes off
At room temperature with parsley and another spoon of oil over it, and bread beside.
Four days in the fridge and better on the second. Take it out forty minutes before serving: at fridge temperature the oil sets solid and the flavour closes up.
Not reheated. It is made to be eaten cold, and heating undoes everything the oil did for the texture.
Not for the freezer: the aubergine goes spongy and the oil separates.
Crushed onto bread, or stirred through pasta.
Suitable from twelve months: soft, sweet and without heat. For 12–36 months take the peppers out, peel it completely and lift their share before the salt. For a baby under one the aubergine, tomato and onion filling suits from eight months, unsalted.
- Aubergine → Courgette Courgette works and needs no soak; ten minutes less cooking and a lighter dish.
- Olive oil dishes The method this recipe rests on
- Aubergine What it does in heat, water and acid
- Bulb onion What it does in heat, water and acid
- Tomato What it does in heat, water and acid
- Karnıyarık Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
- Green beans in olive oil Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
- Türlü Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
- For guests Other recipes that answer the same need
- Seasonal Other recipes that answer the same need
- Vegan Other recipes that answer the same need
- Weekend batch Other recipes that answer the same need
What it tastes like
The axes that define this recipe: sweet 28, aroma 53.
This profile is computed rather than measured: the role-weighted average of its ingredients’ taste vectors, shifted by what the cooking does. The thin line is the database average on that axis.
Closest in taste
Not hand-picked: ranked by distance across the eight taste axes.
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