Turkish stew

My favorite things about this recipe are twofold:
One - that it is very adaptable.
Two - that it is a damn good way of using up some leftovers.

The main thing about this stew is the flavors which are simple but very effective together. Have try and see how it goes for you. When I'd had this dish before (always made deliciously by my father!) we had lamb but, what I mean when I say is that it is adaptable is that, this time, I made it using chicken. In fact, leftover chicken. Hooray!

This recipe is good for four people and served us a treat for dinner the other night. It's one of my favorite ways to cook - throw a bunch of very tasty ingredients in a pan, and leave them to stew themselves, at a low temperature, all day. 


Ingredients:
Some chicken leftovers - I had about 1/3 of a roasted chicken - shredded
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 green pepper, cored, seeded and chopped small

1 large eggplant, diced

2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
about a litre tomato juice
salt and pepper to season
juice of half a lemon

Method:
Fry up the chicken, onion, garlic and green pepper in the oil and after a few mins, add in the cumin and peppercorns. Don't worry too much about everything sticking to the bottom of the pan. 
Add in the tomato juice and the diced eggplant.
Bring to the boil - there will be a lot of volume, but the mixture will reduce considerabley so don't worry about that too much.
Cook, covered, for about 2 -3 hours and then uncover (to reduce further) for another 1-2 hours. The stew should not boil but should simmer throughout. The final texture you're going for is a very thick stew which you could eat with bread nicely.
It also think this would work as a slow cooker recipe which you could easily leave on all day.