Eggplant

This is one of a few Turkish pilafs which are cooked in olive oil and eaten cold.

I love this Moroccan salad. The eggplants are boiled, not fried, so it is not oily. It is best made several hours in advance so that the flavors have time to penetrate.

Broken pieces of toasted pita bread are sometimes placed at the bottom of the serving dish to become well moistened and soggy with the dressing.

The sauce is a splendid example of the hot, spicy, and sweet combinations which are a thrilling feature of North African cooking. Serve it cold with bread.

Pomegranate syrup gives this attractive Syrian specialty a sweet-and-sour flavor. Look for eggplants which are about 4 inches long.

Another lovely Turkish way of preparing eggplants.

This common Turkish way of serving eggplants is simple and quite delicious.

Roasted and mashed with olive oil and lemon juice is a common and delicious way of eating eggplants, often described as “poor man’s caviar.” Use firm eggplants with a shiny black skin.

This is a popular mezze in every Arab country and a regular companion to falafel. You will always find it in Lebanese and Egyptian restaurants in the West, and even in supermarkets. The smoky flavor of the eggplant and the nutty taste of tahina sharpened by lemon and garlic make a seductive combination.

This is very popular in Iran. A similar recipe, called buran, is to be found in al-Baghdadi’s thirteenth-century cookery manual (see appendix). There, fried meatballs are added to the puree, and the dish is seasoned with ground cumin and cinnamon.

This dish does not look very nice—it is a muddy brown—but the flavors are deliciously rich and strong, and the meat is meltingly tender. Serve it with plain or Vermicelli Rice (page 304).

This dish is complex and requires time, but it has dramatic appeal and it is quite delicious with layers of different textures and flavors. I like to add two ingredients that are optional: pomegranate molasses (see page 7), which gives a brown color and sweet-and-sour flavor to the tomato sauce, and tahini (see page 7), which gives a nutty flavor to the yogurt. Look for small eggplants, 4 to 4 1/4 inches long, which can usually be found in Middle Eastern and Asian stores.

This dish can be served cold as a salad or hot as a side dish to accompany meat or chicken. It has a delicate sweet-and-sour flavor.

The dressing of pomegranate molasses and vinegar gives the eggplant slices a sweet-and-sour flavor. Serve them hot or cold, with the yogurt and tahini topping at room temperature.

This dish is traditionally made with fried eggplants, but I like to roast them whole and then peel them and cut them into pieces. Serve them hot or cold.

This is beautiful to look at and delicious.