Straight off, I'll be honest: I had great expectations from this recipe and was just as greatly disappointed. Rommaniya (الرمانية الفلسطينية) is an ancient Palestinian recipe merging a lot of my favorite ingredients: lentils, aubergines, lemon, garlic, pomegranate molasses, and fresh pomegranate.
So what went wrong?? It just tasted so so wrong which is very unusual because many of my favorite foods are Palestinian (see musakhan, kunafa). So although this post has been sitting in the drafts folder for months, I decided to publish it just in case my taste buds have a unique aversion to rommaniya and everyone else might just love it.
Ingredients:
7 cups water
1 tsp cumin
1 cup green/brown lentils
2 medium aubergines, cubed
3 cloves garlic, grated
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sumac
1 1/2 Tbsp flour
1/4 cup pomegranate molasses
1 lemon, juice
5 Tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic (again)
pomegranate seeds and parsley to decorate
Method:
Put them water, cumin, and lentils in a pot. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer until cooked (about 15-20 minutes).
Add to the pot the cubed aubergines and three cloves grated garlic; stir, and cook until the aubergines cubes are soft, another 10-15 minutes.
Stir in the salt and sumac.
In a cup, combine the flour, pomegranate molasses, and lemon juice and stir until smooth.
Add the lemon mixture to the pot of lentils, and stir for 5 minutes until thickened.
In a small pan, cook the remaining 3 cloves garlic in the olive oil until fragrant. Stir into the lentil mixture.
To serve, top the rommaniya with fresh pomegranate arils and parsley leaves.
May be consumed warm or room temperature.
صحة و عافية
It's good that you posted this recipe. It's one that's unique outside of the Middle East. This is a dish that I make based on an Iraqi friend's recipe that she said is Syrian. I've found the key to be using a lot of garlic, a lot of rhuman, and a lot of lemon. Just keep adding it and stirring until you get the flavor you want. The version I've had doesn't include eggplant so maybe that also affects the outcome? Thanks for sharing. The picture you posted looks really pretty! It makes the recipe look delicious even if you yourself were disappointed!
ReplyDeleteThat's very kind of you. I agree that perhaps if there was much more garlic, lemon, and pomegranate molasses the dish might have been saved. Maybe also if the eggplant cubes were fried before addition. I however stuck true to the traditional way of making this since it's such an ancient dish and thought that something so tried and true cannot go wrong.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the aubergine would be a lot better fried. I think aubergine is at its best fried, deep fried even better!
DeleteIt's such a wonderful and versatile vegetable. I am still genuinely baffled at how horrible this recipe was. I might need to test an alternate way to render this dish successful.
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