Breaded Eggplant With Tzatziki
Breaded eggplant is an easy and tasty recipe you can enjoy as an appetizer, side dish, or as a main dish to go with pasta. It makes for an excellent appetizer with marinara sauce, tzatziki sauce, or chipotle sauce as a dip. The eggplants can be baked in the oven or in an air fryer to make them tender inside and crispy outside,
Tzatziki is a refreshing, healthy labneh (hung curd)-cucumber sauce, flavored with dill and garlic to give the breaded eggplant an extra excellence.
Total time: 30 to 40 minutes
Serving: 5 people
Ingredients:
- 2 medium eggplant
For batter:
- All-purpose flour
- Corn starch
- Salt as per taste
- Water as needed to make a semi-thick batter
For coating:
- 1 cup bread crumbs, or more if needed
- Salt as per taste
- 1 tsp Italian herbs.
- ½ tsp chili flakes
- 1/4 tsp black pepper powder
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
For tzatziki sauce:
- 2 cup hung curd
- 1 small cucumber (grated)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped dill
- Salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions:
To make Tzatziki sauce:
- Using a whisk blend the hung curd and olive oil. Add grated cucumbers, lemon juice, garlic, and dill. Mix until combined. Add salt and pepper to taste.
To make breaded eggplant:
- Cut the eggplant into 1/2 inch-thick slices. Sprinkle some salt on both sides of the slices and let them rest on a colander for 10 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, make the batter and set it aside.
- In another bowl, combine bread crumbs, salt, pepper, chili flakes and garlic powder
- Dip each piece of eggplant in the batter and then coat them with bread crumbs Repeat for the rest until all the eggplants are coated.
- Heat a frying pan over medium high heat. Add enough oil to submerge eggplants
- Add the eggplant pieces to the hot oil
- Fry the eggplants for 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden brown and crisp.
- Flip to cook the other side.
- Once golden brown throughout, remove the eggplant from the oil and place on a cooling rack to drain out excess oil.
- Do not cover the eggplant or they could get soggy
- Serve and enjoy the eggplant with prepared tzatziki sauce.
Indian Chef Chhaya Thakker, who has a huge following online on WhatsApp and YouTube will be sharing her favorite recipes and cooking tips with readers of The Times Kuwait. For feedback, you can write to editortimeskuwait@gmail.com
