Musakkaa- مسقعة الباذنجان

Musakkaa is a popular dish in the Mediterranean countries. I have listed a basic vegetarian version of this recipe here although there are different variations such as adding cooked ground beef or lamb, or mix cooked chickpeas, add green peppers, garlic or hot spicy peppers, depending on what you like in your dish.

Ingredients:
-Two big eggplant peeled and sliced into ½ inch thickness
-Canola oil for frying
-1 medium diced onion
- 4 medium size diced fresh or canned diced tomatoes
- Small can of tomato paste
- Salt and black pepper to taste
-1/2 to 1 cup water

Method:
Peel eggplants and cut into 1 cm (1/2 inch) thick slices.
Brown lightly with oil on both sides, You may deep fry it too for faster results.
Remove from pan, drain from oil over paper towels.
Layer eggplants in a shallow baking pan.
In another pot, sauté the diced onions. Add the diced tomato, tomato paste, water, salt and pepper. This will be your sauce that you will add to the layered eggplant in the baking pan.Boil the sauce for about five minutes. It will continue cooking when you bake it with the eggplants.
Pour the sauce mixture over eggplants and spread evenly. Top with sliced tomato if you like.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake for about 45 minutes in a 420-450 Fahrenheit degree oven (depending on your oven temperature) until the edges are turning brown and the tomato sauce looks and smells cooked!
You may remove the foil the last 5-10 minutes to brown the top .
Serve hot or at room temperature with white rice on the side.