Eggplant

This meal is reminiscent of one we enjoyed at the Lemon Grass Restaurant in New Orleans. Active time: 40 min Start to finish: 40 min

The sauce is a twist on raita, the cooling yogurt side dish served with spicy foods. Like all the best buffet dishes, the eggplant is equally good warm or at room temperature.

Pasta Mille Gusti This recipe for "pasta with a thousand flavors," as Aeolian Islanders call it, is based on one developed by Fraser's friend after the writer herself was unable to persuade any locals to share their recipes. We recommend Bella di Cerignola olives, which are quite mild. Active time: 1 hr Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Eggplant adds a nutty flavor. Open a light-bodied Valpolicella from Italy for the meal.

Caponata is a Sicilian antipasto; its bold flavors usually include eggplant, anchovy, olives, and capers. We call our version a "caponatina," because we've finely diced the ingredients for a more refined hors d'oeuvre. Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 1 hr

Escalivada, from Catalonia in northeastern Spain, is a mixture of vegetables roasted in the ashes of a slow fire. Plenty of wood chips add a smoky nuance here; the finished vegetables are offered at room temperature in a roasted-garlic vinaigrette.

Lavash, a Middle Eastern flatbread, comes in a variety of sizes and textures, from crisp rectangular crackers to large folded pliable rounds. It is the latter called for here. To form the lavash into cups, you'll need a pan with 12 mini-muffin (1/8-cup) molds, each about 1 3/4 inches across the top and 3/4 inch deep. Caponata is a piquant Sicilian dish of eggplant, onions, tomatoes, anchovies, olives, and capers, generously laced with olive oil; this variation is much lighter-and contains no added fat-because it omits the oil, anchovies, and olives.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from chef Neil Perry's book Rockpool. Neil also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. For your convenience, we've converted the measures — with as much accuracy as possible — from Australian to American. For those who have metric equipment and wish to follow Neil's recipe to the milliliter, we've included the original measures too. To read more about Neil and Australian cuisine, click here. The availability of Illabo lamb on the Australian market is due to Tony Lehmann's efforts. He is one of the few Australian producers who understands what the market wants, and delivers, in no uncertain terms, a quality product that is markedly better than the bland generic produce grown for the large corporations. It is because of suppliers like Tony that the quality and variety of fine produce we have available in Australia is maintained. This is the driving force behind fabulous multicultural cooking. This is the dish of the moment at Rockpool. The lamb is only 6 weeks old, and has a dressed body weight of about 8 kg (17 1/2 lbs). It is flavoursome, tender and has a wonderful clean taste that is unmatched. The accompanying sauce is rich, flavoursome and has no Asian ingredients, except for a little ginger, for good luck. The only necessary addition is a green salad à la Rockpool. The recipe for Tomato Jam yields 750 ml (3 cups). It is also very good with raw fish, and will keep for up to a month in the refrigerator.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.