Italian-Arab Goulash

It is actually called, Pepperonata, which is an Italian vegetable stew. But I like to add cous cous to make it middle Mediterranean.

Recipe:

a big eggplant
4 peppers
a huge onion
garlic
olive oil
2 cups plum tomatoes
salt
pepper
sugar
1/3 cup wine
1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
1 cup of cous cous

Eggplant One half hour before you are ready to cook, slice a one pound eggplant into four lenthwise sections and salt. Put this in a colander for half an hour. When done, scrape off all the salt and cut into cubes.

Cut up before you are ready to cook, the following veggies:
Onion one really big onion sliced into slivers or up to 3 smaller onions
Garlic two or three cloves of garlic smashed or crushed
Peppers- 2, red, 2 yellow or for those who do not like peppers, 4 cubanelle peppers. (They are the long light green peppers you may see in the supermarket. Their taste is less intense.)
Tomatoes 2 cups of Italian San Marzo tomatoes (from a big can and without the juice). Chop them up into big chunks.

Heat up a dutch oven or a deep frying pan. It has to be at least 12 inches across the bottom.

Olive oil -when the pan is hot, add the olive oil and then the garlic, onions and peppers and cook for about 5 minutes or until they get floppy.
Then add the eggplant. And after about 5 minutes-
Then add the tomatoes
Add some salt and put in some freshly ground pepper to your taste.
Stir it up. Put a lid on it. Lower the heat.
Cook for 15 minutes, stirring it every once in a while.

Wine Put about 1/3 cup of any kind of wine into a measuring cup. Add...
Balsamic Vinegar-about 1/4 cup and mix it up. Add a bit of
Sugar and mix it up some more. Pour it into the pot and stir.
Raise the heat to reduce the liquid. Cook til it is reduced a bit.

Now you can do one of two things. You can take the pot off the stove and serve the peperonata over a bed of cous cous that has been cooked to the package directions. OR
You can add instant cous cous (Near East brand) and stir it into the hot peperonata, cover and let stand for 5 minutes.

adapted from Romagnoli's Table