Persian Cuisine - hamburger, eggplant and flatbread

...flat bread and sweet pepper ...

After a long day of chores I came into my house and the aroma of foreign cuisine was so delicious that I thought, please, please, don’t let those Persian boarders leave until I can cook like they can. 

I didn’t think anything more about it until a few hours later when a plate full of food from upstairs appeared at my desk down stairs. 

There was only one plate.  

... the leftovers ... not much ... the container is small ...

I didn’t realize that I didn’t share it with Kelvin. 

Later I went up to offer a little help with the dishes, since I was still in the afterglow of a meal I couldn’t have bought anywhere else.

“How did you make this, Poira?”

“Oh, I don’t have a recipe.  I just am cooking like my mom did.  A bit of this.  A handful of that.  I will tell you what I did.  If you put it up on your family food blog, then I will be able to go back and replicate it myself.”

... sweet peppers come in a small container ... sometimes ...

I grabbed a pencil and paper and began to write:

• 800 grams hamburger
• 3 or 4 bay leaves
• 400 grams mixed chili beans out of a can to make things easy
• 1 small white onion
• 1 bunch green onions
• 100 grams sweet peppers (small).  These are sweeter than the larger bell peppers.
• 2 hot peppers fresh (not Thai, not jalapeno, but small with a long shape.)
• 1 can tomato paste

Herbs

• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• black pepper
• salt
• 1 tsp paprika
• Add ½ cup lemon juice at the end.

1.      Fry white onion, green onions, hot peppers, meat.  Then add sweet peppers at the end as well as tomato paste and ½ glass of water.

2.      Simmer 25 minutes

3.      Cut egg plant into thin ¼ inch pieces.  Broil while chili is cooking.  Take the chili off when all of the water evaporates.  Watch the eggplant as it broils – about 5 minutes for it.  Spread some oil on the pan before you broil the eggplant.

4.      To serve, ideally you should put a bit of chili on top of the eggplant.  If you have too much chili as we did tonight, oh well, just spread it liberally over the eggplant.

Serve on any flat bread.  

With any good luck, there will be a recipe coming about how to make good flatbread.  If those two engineers (Pouria and Amir) can do it, then I think it is within my ability too.