Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Traditional Chicken-Eggplant "po shopski"

This is a recipe from my homeland that our american friends seem to like. None of them has IBS.

What you need:
- 800 g of chicken (usually, I just use about two chicken breasts, but you can use more meat if you like your food more meaty, LOL) 800g = 28 oz
- 2-3 T vegetable oil (you don't need that at all, I make it without oil all the time, and everyone loves it, but if you want, you can add oil... the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup, LOL)
- about 100g of onions (that's 3.5 oz)
- black pepper, about 1 teaspoon or to taste
- one jar of roasted red peppers (the jars I use have 8.5 oz/250g, the original recipe calls for 400g raw peppers, but with IBS, we can forget about the raw peppers and in that quantity) or the 8.5 oz roasted red peppers, if you feel like roasting them yourself.
- 1 large eggplant (meaning, one of the normal ones, not the italian kind)
- about 300g tomatoes (cooked or raw, I usually use canned). 300g = 10.5 oz...
- parsley
- salt
- 4-5 whole black pepper drupes

Preparation instructions:

Before you start: slice the eggplant into thick slices and salt them. Put them in a large bowl and cover with water. The eggplant will not sit covered under the water, so put a plate on top of it to press it down. Let sit 30 minutes, that is while you are preparing the rest of the ingredients. After it sat, drain the water and press the eggplant slices so as to remove the excess water they asorbed. The idea in this step is to get rid of the bitter taste of the eggplant (whatever causes the taste, I believe, is also not healthy). The salt helps speed up the process, if you have to avoid salt, you can just soak it in water longer (not sure how much longer... at least an hour, though. And yes, lite salt works fine, that's what I use)

Cut the chicken in pieces and "fry" in the oil (I just put a little water in a non stick pan and cook it like that) When it's almost done, reduce heat to medium, add the onions, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, in this order, cut in small pieces (use a food processor) as well as add the black pepper. Add 1 and 1/2 cups of warm water, add salt and simmer. Depending on what you put, you might have to cook a little longer (say if you put raw tomatoes and want to cook them through), but I usually simmer just for about 10 more minutes. The eggplant will become mushy

Crush the whole black pepper into large chunks (that is, don't overdo the crushing, LOL) and add to the mixture at the end of the cooking.

When it's done add parsley and and serve over rice or skinny mashed potatoes, baked potatoes or some other source of starch and SF.

I usually use much less black pepper than called for (and I don't get whole pepper to crush, I'm too lazy). Still turns out nice. If you like eggplant, I mean.

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