Wednesday, January 30, 2008

What's Cooking Wednesday: Eggplant Lentil Stew with charred onions and yogurt over Cashew Cinnamon Couscous



For this week's What's Cooking Wednesday, I am offering my submission for Jenn the Leftover Queen's monthly Royal Food Joust. The Food Joust consists of using three ingredients and posting your new recipe on the Royal Food Joust Forum by the first of the next month. So, for February 1st, our ingredients were eggplant, lentils and cinnamon. Yum! Anyone who still wants to join, just click on the forum link.

Eggplant Lentil Stew with Charred Onions and Yogurt Served over Cinnamon Cashew Couscous



Ingredients



1 eggplant, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup lentils
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 small cans fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 TBS olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 medium onions, quartered and drizzled with
1 tsp olive oil

6 – 12 TBS lowfat, plain yogurt

Fat: 3.7g
Carbohydrates: 17g
Calories:114
Protein: 5.25



1. Peel and cube eggplant. Put in collander. Sprinkle with salt. Leave for 15 minutes.

2. While eggplant is standing, rinse and sort 1/2 cup of lentils. Precook lentils in four cups of water for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, drain out the water. The lentils will not be cooked yet. In the meantime, chop the garlic and open the cans of tomatoes.

3. After 15 minutes, rinse the eggplant and pat dry.



4. Add 1 TBS olive oil to saute pan. Heat to medium. Drop in garlic and cook 30 seconds or until fragrant. Add eggplant, and cook for five minutes. Add tomatoes and lentils, cumin and cayenne and cook for 15 - 20 minutes, covered, until lentils are soft.

5. While lentil/eggplant mixture is cooking, heat up a grill pan to smoking. (Or use an outdoor grill). Cut onion into quarters, and drizzle 1 tsp olive oil over onions. Cook on the grill pan until all edges are well charred. Remove from pan and set aside.



6. To serve, pile couscous on plate (use Cashew Cinnamon Couscous recipe below), ladle 1/6 of the stew on top, sprinkle 1/4 of charred onions on top of the stew, and drizzle 1 - 2 tablespoons of stirred, lowfat plain yogurt over all. Serve with more yogurt on the side.

Serves 6.

Cashew-Cinnamon Couscous

Ingredients

1 cup dry, whole wheat couscous
2/3 cup low sodium organic chicken broth
1/3 cup lite coconut milk
1/2 TBS butter
1/4 cup golden raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
2 TBS cashews, chopped and toasted

1. Bring chicken broth, coconut milk, butter, cinnamon and raisins to a boil.

2. Stir in couscous, remove from heat. Let stand five minutes.

3. While couscous is standing, toast chopped cashews.

4. After the five minutes, fluff couscous and stir in the cashews.

Nutritional Info
Fat: 3.2g
Carbohydrates: 27.1g
Calories:155.2
Protein: 5.0g


Serves 6.

As always, nutrition information supplied by the recipe calculator at sparkrecipes.com. And please go to Shan's place for more What's Cooking Wednesday participants.

17 comments:

Betsy said...

OH MY GOD! AM DROOLING ALL OVER THE KEYBOARD! This recipe looks amazing! Thanks!

Sister Sassy said...

Ok, can I come over for dinner...although I might die on the trecherous drive down to you...or up to you. Still, YUM!

Anonymous said...

The ingredients alone in this recipe overwhelm me. Wow!

I'm a simple cook for two reasons. 1) I'm sort of lazy. 2) My husband is "basic." His head would pop off by the time I said "lentils."

I'd love to sample this, though.

anno said...

This sounds so fragrant and lovely... it inspires visions of warm and exotic places, just perfect for these blustery brutal days. Yum!

Sister Sassy said...

Jenny, can you please go downtown, S. University and Eat the Cheese Delight from Oasis for me. Oh that is my top favorite food. ANd then come tell me what kind of FREAKING cheese they use. I MUST figure out how to make this myself because I can't drive 4 hours just to eat a wrap.

Jen said...

Oooo... that sounds very good. I've never tried it! I'll go over there and check it out after this stupid cold goes away. (Head cold, not Michigan cold - that would be way too much to hope for, lol).

Momisodes said...

W.o.W!!! they need a "smell" option on computers.... That looks fabulous. I love all of those ingredients, so I'm sure that is delicious :)

Anonymous said...

mm..I like the combination, and with the coconut..brilliant. great job

Heather said...

I smell a contender. Welcome to the Joust! :)

Shan said...

Wow! This sounds great!

Goofball said...

sounds cool and I learned that an aubergine is an eggplant! And so I learned that I like eggplant although it sounds like a strange word! And I like lentils. And I like couscous.

...but I'd really want to add a barbecued spicy merguez sausage to it. Maybe because I tend to make a eggplant stew/sauce when we bbq.
but I really think your dish needs some meat. Merguez and couscous works well together.

Anonymous said...

Ah, another death to CG menu item. lol. I'll come back when you drop the night shades. :)

Roni said...

ok, that blows my burger out of the water! Looks awesome!

LisaRene said...

Your entry is great! I love the idea of a stew and the cinnamon cashew couscous sounds delicious. Very healthy recipe as well!

Núria said...

Great combination for the Joust! Good luck and have fun!!!

La delirante said...

I love eggplant. great recipe and the pictures are very nice too! Looks like a lot of work but the outcome must be worth the effort! :) Have a lovely day!

Thistlemoon said...

Ohhhh Yeahhhh! That looks awesome! Best of luck in the Joust!