
Photo and Styling by Joseph De Leo
Don’t be fooled by the modern-sounding title—I first found a delightfully simple version of this recipe in Olga Franko’s brilliant 1929 book called Practical Cooking. I was intrigued by the way that, throughout the book, the Ukrainian terms for eggplant and tomatoes seemed very confused: the word for eggplant is “purple tomato” and for tomato “red eggplant”!
If you haven’t tried eggplant with butter before, this will be a revelation. It is delicious and silky and makes for the best starter or sharing dish. Add some fresh herbs too, if you have them.


