"The aubergine seduces. No other vegetable can offer flesh so soft, silken and tender.You don't so much chew an aubergine as let it dissolve on your tongue."
Nigel Slater, Tender Vol I, p. 39
A new global food store has opened up just opposite to where I work. It has a wide array of middle eastern products as well as pulses and spices and I intend to supplement my weekly organic veg box with some of the produce they sell. I love the large bunches of coriander and flat leaf parsley, such a contrast to the plastic packaged supermarket trimmings.
I saw these aubergines and immediately thought of a recipe I had read in Yotam Ottolenghi's "Plenty", a book I received as a present last Christmas. I have long enjoyed his weekly column in the Guardian newspaper.
The recipe for burnt aubergine with tahini can be found on his blog here. I made it as a salad with cucumber and tomatoes and very good it was too.
One of the reasons for starting this blog was to encourage myself to try new recipes from cookbooks I already own.
I wish I lived near one of those global food stores too. Have you tried those little finger sized aubergines yet? Or the pea shaped ones, I read recipes that use them and mentally file them away against the day I find some in a shop on the other side of the city. I love those jewel like pomegranate seeds on your salad, great pictures!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteYes I have tried those small aubergines - lovely in a spiced stew.
Pomegranate seeds are a bit extravagant but I am keen to try using some of these middle eastern flavourings with locally produced vegetables.