This was burnt eggplant and
ptitim soup.
It was the dish served with
Mejadra. In short, we loved the soup! Earthy burnt eggplant flesh, onion, garlic, fresh tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken stock, fresh lemon juice, and cumin seeds created a very unique taste that I hadn't found in a soup before! I burned eggplants beneath the oven broiler, instead of on the stove top. It took about 1 hour, but the process itself was very easy.
For the toppings, I pan-fried some diced eggplant and cooked
ptitim, or Israeli couscous. The recipe used
mograbieh, Lebanese little pasta balls that are similar to
ptitim but we didn't see
mograbieh but
ptitim at Wegmans. That's fine because the authors of Jerusalem book said we could alternate between them. According to the book, there is also Palestinian version of pasta balls, called
maftoul. Interesting! I liked to find the giant couscous along with chunky eggplant in the smoothly pureed soup. The recipe suggested fresh basil or dill as an optional garnish, which we skipped it so that we could focus on the basic taste of the soup. The soup was really good, sensationally good!
