Recipe for Sinia....

Chef recipes hard-core style


I was invited for dinner at Golan (my friend)'s house...he recently got married and his wife Merav is pregnant.
Being a chef for the past 8 years, I am aways expected to bring something new and exciting to the table...
So...I try not to fail them and live up to these expectations.
(an explanation about the topic  of my blog will come...stickaround..)


Here's this one for you:


This one is called Sinia
Originally called Kafta in Tehina which means – meat balls in Tehina.
Sinia, which comes from the pot they use to cook the meat balls in, is a great meat dish for dinner, very authentic and full of flavor.
Once you eat it, you will not forget the taste.


This is a very unique and interesting recipe as there are many version of it, this one combines my expertise - hard-core cooking.


"hard-core style", What is it? and why? cause I like to leave the hard-cored tastes in the food and what ever spices I use is in synergy (correlation/ chemistry) with the inner taste of the ingredient so as to get its essential taste out with out contradicting it.
*Recipe for 3 people


Ingredients

• 3 tbl spoons olive oil
• 3 tbl spoons canola oil
• 750 gr good quality minced meat (= 26.4554 oz)
• 5 medium onions – finely chopped
• 8~10 cloves of fresh garlic
• 2 large eggplants
• 75 gr good quality whole grained sesame tehina (= 2.64554 oz)
• Squeezed juice of 1 lemon
• 1 nutmeg
• 4 spoons cinnamon
• 1 spoon turmeric
• Salt and pepper

Tools

• Heat resistant glass baking dish 30 x 30 cm (10x10 inch)
• 2 units of ½ litter plastic container with lids
• 1 flat plastic container with lid
• 1 Baking oven

Preparation


Sauté all of the chopped onions. Halfway to getting it bronzed, add half of the cloves of garlic crushed or diced to fry with the onions.
When the onions are almost transparent add all the meat. Keep on crushing the meat to completely separate it totally into little pieces while preventing the onions from burning. Add sat and pepper to taste.
Lower the flame and cook until all the meat is gray, then grate the nutmeg over the meat, mix it in, add all the cinnamon.
Turn flame off, let the meat cool for a short while, and stuff it into a ½ litter container and cover with a lid. Put aside for an hour so to absorb and steam in all the aroma.
Roast the eggplants on a pan (might stick to it and leave it cleanable), peel, put in a plastic container side by side, spread turmeric over them, cover and set aside for an hour.
Put the tehina into a ½ litter jar with lid, crush the rest of the garlic in, add the lemon juice and water up to ¾ of the container, flat spoon of salt, cover well and shake well....don't you get all dirty now...
After it s well mixed in, add water all the way up.


...After an hour


At this stage you would want to pre-heat the oven to 80 ºC = 176 ºF (unless you don't want to eat soon...)
Open the meat container, spread the meat on the baking dish to an even well tight layer.
Take the eggplants out, rinse lightly to take the excess turmeric off but do not over do it, what has been absorbed stays! Put them on a cutting board and flatten with your hand so both will manage to cover the surface of the meat with an even layer.
Pour the tehina we have prepared from the container over the eggplant.
Slide into the preheated oven in the middle level, raise the oven's temperature to 180 ºC = 356 ºF
Let it bake for 20~25 minutes, until the tehina is lightly bronzed and baked.


Optional
My friend Golan said he is missing tomatoes in this,
My suggestion to that:
5 minutes before it finishes baking, lay thin slices of tomatoes on top of the tehina, if they are not thin, they will not bake well and the liquid from them will moisture the tehina and we don't want that.
We want a nice brown baked top crust of the tehina and tomatoes if you wish,
Or, you can dice little cubes of tomatoes a serve along side.


Bonn appetite.


The jadeye.


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* Thank you Chavie P. (aka Lady D.) for proof-editing my writing.
J.