I made no secret of the fact that aubergine, eggplant or mad apple (as it used to be referred to in the Middle Ages 😉 ), is one of my favourite vegetables. I love its firm texture and its propensity to soak up flavours so well. No wonder it’s such an important ingredient in so many culinary traditions that are known for their assertive flavours – Japanese, Mediterranean / Middle-Eastern and Indian.
Today’s dish idea has been shamelessly borrowed from one of my culinary idols, Yotam Ottolenghi, whose vegetable-centric and very visual style of cooking has earned him a cult following all over the world. It’s a simple dish of aubergines marinated in a spice rub and roasted until tender, topped with a simple yet flavoursome bulgur wheat salad and drizzled (in my case as the original recipe uses a yoghurt sauce) with a tahini sauce. Apart from the sauce itself, I made a few other tweaks to the original but I cannot claim any credit for this recipe, I’m afraid. This dish is ‘an Ottolenghi on a plate’ ! 🙂
1 tbsp tahini ½ lemon, juice only 1-2 tsp maple syrup 1 small garlic clove, grated salt and pepper, to taste
