Which Turkish dish is made by stuffing eggplants with ground meat and baking? The answer is Karnıyarık.
Karnıyarık is prepared by splitting whole eggplants lengthwise and filling them with a mixture of ground meat, onion, garlic, tomato, parsley, and sometimes green pepper. The stuffed eggplants are then cooked until tender, traditionally after the eggplants have been fried, though roasting is also common.
The name literally means “split belly,” referring to the opened eggplant. It is often served with rice and is a familiar home-style dish in Turkish cuisine. Recipes vary in the seasoning and in whether the eggplant is fried or roasted before filling.
A common mix-up is İmam bayıldı, another stuffed-eggplant dish. İmam bayıldı traditionally contains onions, garlic, and tomatoes but no meat, while Karnıyarık’s defining filling includes ground meat. Musakka is also different: it is generally a layered or casserole-style eggplant dish rather than a whole stuffed eggplant.