Eight excellent eggplant expressions: These recipes coax the purple polyglots into off-the-charts deliciousness

Baked Kofta with Eggplant and Tomato from ‘Falastin’ by Sami Tamimi

By Leslie Brenner

No one ever craves eggplant. (Do they?!) And yet eggplant — or aubergine, as it’s more mellifluously called on the east side of the pond — is an integral part of so many enticing dishes. Here are eight recipes that push those big, shiny lunks into the realm of the irresistible.

‘Falastin’ Baked Kofta with Eggplant and Tomato

I fell in love with this recipe when I reviewed Falastin — Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley’s wonderful 2020 cookbook featuring the foods and flavors of Palastine. Because the dish requires a fat slice of ripe tomato on top of each lamb-and-beef patty, it’s the perfect time of year to make it: that moment when tomatoes are still in high season and eggplants are starting to beckon. Where’s our star player? A substantial slice of meltingly roasted eggplant sits under each meat patty. Spiced tomato sauce goes on top, the whole thing is baked to lusciousness and topped with herbs and toasted pine nuts.

I made it again a few nights ago, and it was so good I nearly fainted.

RECIPE: ‘Falastin’ Baked Kofta with Eggplant and Tomato

A Magnificent Moussaka

If I had to choose only one way to eggplant for the rest of my days, it might well be this moussaka. Again, the eggplant consorts with lamb, tomato and spices — but in moussaka’s case it’s pulled together with rich, cheesy béchamel and a layer of potatoes. Our recipe, we venture to suggest, is hard to beat, which is why we call it Moussaka for the Ages.

RECIPE: Moussaka for the Ages

Bring on the Baba Ganoush

Late-summer-into-fall is the perfect time to throw whole eggplants onto the coals of a Weber grill or (almost as good) in your broiler. After their almost unimaginable transformation to smoky, velvety unctuousness, stir in tahini whisked to fluffiness with lemon juice and season with garlic. Then swipe a warm pita bread through one of the world’s most spectacular dips.

RECIPE: Baba Ganoush

Unreasonably Good Roasted Ratatouille

Traditional ratatouilles can be good (ish). Roast the vegetables to concentrate flavors and preserve textures, and it becomes outstanding. Now is prime season for all the relevant ingredients: Zucchini, bell peppers, tomato, and, you know, eggplant.

RECIPE: Roasted Ratatouille

Anjali Pathak’s Charred Baby Eggplants

Cute little purple-and-white-striped fairy tale eggplants (shown below) are ideal for these outrageously good Charred Baby Eggplants from Anjali Pathak’s The Indian Family Kitchen. The eggplants are melty-soft and the coconutty, spicy topping — with dabs of yogurt and delicate curry leaves — turns them into something super special. Find the curry leaves in a well stocked Indian grocery or supermarket, if you’re lucky enough to have one handy.

Fairytale eggplants can sometimes be found in farmers markets or Indian groceries.

Recipe: Anjali Pathak’s Charred Baby Eggplants

Zap ‘Em and Make ‘Em Dance!

Fairy tale or other baby eggplants are also perfect for the chef José Andrés’ crazy-delicious, umami-forward Dancing Eggplant, but everyday globe eggplants work great for this as well. Zap them in the microwave or grill them, slather them with a Japanese-inspired sauce and top with bonito flakes that seem to dance for an uncannily good snack or starter. We adapted it from Andrés’ 2019 book Vegetables Unleashed.

RECIPE: José Andrés’ Dancing Eggplant

Tangy Eggplant Salad with a Creamy, Rich Tahini Swirl

This glorious dish from Reem Kassis’ The Arabesque Table would surely take top prize at a mezze potluck, if such a thing exists. Pomegranate molasses is responsible for the zing.

RECIPE: ‘Arabesque Table’ Eggplant Salad with Tahini

A Dreamy Eggplant-Lentil Situation from Ottolenghi

Eighth (but by no means least!) is this fabulous vegetarian main course from one of our favorite cookbooks, Ottolenghi Simple. Pretty little green lentils from France share the spotlight in the dish with melty, roasty eggplant and charred cherry tomatoes. Tangy yogurt adds cool creaminess, and fresh oregano makes it interesting. Perfect weeknight dinner material heading into the fall.

RECIPE: Ottolenghi’s Puy Lentils & Eggplant

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Summer Produce Special Part I: Our eggplant extravaganza channels India, Japan and the Levant

It’s the most delicious time of year to be a vegetable-lover — don’t you agree? We’ve got wonderful recipes to help you make the most of summer produce, whether it comes from your insanely productive garden, the farm stand, that large haul of zucchini your neighbor gifted you, or the supermarket. This first in a series of stories is our Summer Produce Special — a bumper crop of our best recipes featuring the vegetables of the moment. Today that would be . . . eggplant!

Got eggplants?

• If you have the gorgeous baby kind featured in the photo above, and if you can get fresh curry leaves, you can make the outrageously good Charred Baby Eggplants from Anjali Pathak’s The Indian Family Kitchen. (We’re working on a mini-review of the book, coming soon!) This is one of the best things we’ve eaten all year. And it has been a long year. The eggplants are melty-soft and the coconutty, spicy topping — with dabs of yogurt and delicate curry leaves — turns the into something super special.

• Make ‘em dance! Those babies are also perfect for the chef José Andrés’ crazy-delicious, umami-forward Dancing Eggplant. Nuke or grill them, slather them with a Japanese-inspired sauce and top with bonito flakes that seem to dance.

• Throw any eggplants, large or small, in the bottom of your grill (or your broiler) and make the best Baba Ganoush imaginable.

• Baba-ed out? Make a lively Charred Eggplant Salad, zingy with lemon.

• Medium-sized eggplants are perfect for a fabulous Baked Kofta with Eggplant and Tomato, from Sami Tamimi’s new Falastin cookbook. Each kafta (lamb patty) crowns a stack of tomato and eggplant, so best if the eggplants aren’t too fat.

Next up in our Summer Produce Special series: Zucchini. Watch this space: It’s coming to Cooks Without Borders soon!

RECIPE: Baked Kofta with Eggplant and Tomato

RECIPE: Charred Eggplant Salad

RECIPE: Baba Ganoush

RECIPE: Dancing Eggplant

RECIPE: Anjali Pathak’s Charred Baby Eggplants

Celebrate tomato season with salmorejo (a cousin of gazpacho) or tomato-burrata salad

We like to eat pretty simply and lightly at home during summer — that is, when it’s just Thierry and me. When Wylie’s here, he’s happiest making something complicated and involved, with as many ingredients as possible, especially well marbled proteins — and bonus points for flambéing, searing in cast-iron on maximum heat so the smoke alarm goes off or finishing a sauce with a fat knob of butter.

While tomatoes are bursting with flavor, I’d be happy eating nothing more than tomato salad with crusty bread three nights a week — especially if it can be the burrata variation of a classic Caprese, just sliced heirloom tomatoes, burrata, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper.

I’m embarrassed to write about the salad, as it’s so obvious and doesn’t require a recipe. But it feels disingenuous to assemble a dish so frequently and never mention it once in years of publishing — especially as there are young cooks and beginning cooks who may be less familiar with it.

You probably already knew how to make it (maybe you have your own version). To me what elevates it is using great olive oil, the freshest and fruitiest you can find, and my favorite finishing salt, Maldon (love those large, fragile flakes). When burrata’s not to be had, good ricotta can be nice in its place, and of course mozzarella goes back to the classic, if you’re feeling more nostalgic.

Here’s an actual recipe for the burrata version, just for the record (or if you want to forward it to your 19-year old nephew who’s learning to cook):

Classic Gazpacho Sevillano also shows up constantly on our summertime table; it’s one of my favorite dishes of all time. But until recently, I had never made salmorejo, its close cousin from nearby Córdoba (though I mentioned it in a 2003 Los Angeles Times story that won me a James Beard Award). Both Córdoba and Sevilla are in Spain’s southern region of Andalusia, a hot region where cold soups refresh in the summer.

Salmorejo is a cold, smooth, creamy cold soup whose basic ingredients are fewer than gazpacho’s: just tomatoes, bread (quite a lot of it), garlic, oil and salt. Vinegar is commonly included, though it is not necessarily traditional. The traditional — and still ubiquitous — garnish duo is chopped hard-boiled egg and serrano ham.

At a reader’s request I pulled out my blender and my history books and began salmorejo R & D. (Yes, we love cooking to order: If there’s something you’d like us to cover, let us know!)

Claudia Roden tells us in her marvelous, encyclopedic 2011 book The Food of Spain something I hadn’t known when I wrote that long-ago gazpacho story: that Seville was the province where tomatoes were first grown in Spain, and that gazpacho was the meal that farm works made when they worked the vegetable fields. They actually carried with them a dornillo, the large wooden mortar and pestle used to pound the ingredients and made the gazpacho on the spot.

Roden describes salmorejo as “a thick, dense, creamy version of gazpacho made with more bread,” one that you find at all the flamenco festivals and other festive occasions, served with a glass of wine, as well as at “every bar and tavern in Córdoba, topped with chopped hard-boiled egg and bits of jamón serrano.”

In fact, there is quite a lot of bread in salmorejo. If gazpacho is like a liquid salad, salmorejo is like a liquid sandwich — though it eats like a refreshing cold soup. “Some recipes have as much bread as tomatoes,” writes Roden. Needless to say, Keto adherents need not apply.

Another Spanish cooking expert, Anya von Bremzen, calls salmorejo in her 2005 book The New Spanish Table “Andalucia’s other tomato and bread masterpiece.” She describes it as “a cream with a texture that falls somewhere between a dip and a soup,” and points out that besides being a soup, it’s also wonderful as an accompaniment for crudités or “a pile of poached shrimp.” She also likes to serve it in shot glasses as a tapa, topped with a poached or grilled shrimp on a skewer. (Note to self: do that!)

South of Córdoba in Antequera, a town about 30 miles north of the Mediterranean coast, a cousin of salmorejo called porra is garnished with bits of tuna. And of course you can garnish salmorejo with a wide variety of things — von Bremzen suggests small poached shrimp, diced cooked potatoes and/or chopped tomatoes and onions, or those small chunks of canned tuna.

Von Bremzen and Roden both offer recipes that look excellent, and that I’ll definitely get around to trying theirs. (Curiously, I didn’t find one among the 1,080 recipes in Simone and Inés Ortega’s 1080 Recipes. Originally published in 1972 by Simone Ortega, 1080 recetas de cocina, as it’s called in Spain, is known as the Bible of cooking for Spanish home cooks.)

This batch, made with a combo of yellow and red tomatoes, turned out more orange than red.

Instead I went with Spanish-American chef José Andrés, who published a brilliantly simple version in Food & Wine in 2017 (it’s always safe to side with a superhero!).

For his recipe, toss tomatoes, crustless rustic white bread, sherry vinegar, garlic, salt and water in the blender, give it a good, long, thorough blitz so it’s very smooth, stream in some olive oil as the motor’s running, then serve, garnished with torn slices of serrano ham, a swirl of olive oil and chopped hard-boiled egg. I was surprised at how little vinegar Andés calls for — just a teaspoon for 2 1/2 pounds of tomatoes — but it was perfect.

Got tomatoes? Here’s the recipe:

Once you try it as is, you might want to riff on it, adding more or less bread, vinegar and salt to taste, and of course playing with garnishes.

All the recipes I found called for chilling the soup before eating, but I don’t imagine those farm workers who invented it brought coolers, and I couldn’t wait; besides, things tend to be more flavorful when they’re room temperature.

In, any case, it was deliciously refreshing straight from the blender jar.

Happy tomato season!

[RECIPE: Salmorejo]

[RECIPE: Tomato and Burrata Salad]

Let's dive into an icy-cold bowl of spicy Korean noodles

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On a hot summer evening, there's nothing more refreshing and gratifying than diving into an chilly bowl of lightly spicy Korean noodles. 

It's really like a salad and a noodle bowl tossed into one – a rare example of cold comfort food. There's shredded Romaine on the bottom, then noodles dressed with a luscious, spicy sauce, then an array of garnishes on top. Toss it all together, and eat. Want it a little spicier? Add some chile flakes. 

One nice thing about this dish is it's endlessly customizable. Use either Korean somen noodles or Japanese soba noodles. It would probably be good with glass (mung bean) noodles, too. Add or subtract toppings as you like.  Top it with a soft-boiled egg instead of a hard-boiled one. 

The dressing gets its body and spicy sweetness from raw apple and puréed kimchi. Want to make it vegetarian? Leave out the kimchi and fish sauce; use a little more soy sauce and spoonful of Korean chile paste instead. Leave off the egg as well, and it's vegan.

I'm excited for you to taste this. Please let us know how you like it!

12 crazy-good summer recipes

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As you may have noticed, Cooks Without Borders is all about crafting the crazy-good: creating or hunting down recipes and refining them until they're brilliant. Not only do these recipes have to work, and work well (as we're pretty sure all our recipes do!) they have to result in dishes so delicious they could glue you to the ceiling. That's when I stop tweaking: We're pretty confident that they're crazy-good. 

Here's are 12 stand-out (yes, crazy good!) summer recipes, listed in order of how you'd eat 'em – from starters through desserts:

Gazpacho Sevillano

Gazpacho Sevillano

In the height of tomato season, our version of the cool classic soup from Southern Spain is a stunner. Follow it with Chiringuito Seafood Paella (see below) and you've got a smashing Spanish feast.

Ultimate Hummus

Ultimate Hummus

Which version of the Middle-East's glorious classic dip is the best, Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's or Michael Solomonov's (from Zahav in Philadelphia)? Our recipe draws from the strengths of each. 

Pissaladière

Pissaladière

Didn't manage to swing that vacation in Provence (again!) this year? No matter: Invite friends over, sip glasses of rosé and serve them this amazing onion-anchovy tart. 

Quinoa, Pea and Mint Tabbouleh

Quinoa, pea and mint tabbouleh

This recipe from Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking, needed no tweaking – chef Michael Solomonov's dish is brilliant as written. I'd only suggest doubling it so you have at least a slight chance of leftovers. 

Totally Awesome Caesar Salad

Totally Awesome Caesar Salad

I spent decades thinking the classic recipe for Caesar salad couldn't be improved upon. I was wrong. This one plays up the coddled egg angle – to delicious effect. Awesome Caesar and burgers on the grill, anyone?

Warm Summer Salad Without Borders

Warm Summer Salad WIthout Borders

Got zucchini? This warm summer salad capitalizes on your favorite (and most abundant) summer produce: tomatoes, okra, summer squash, sweet corn. Don't like okra? Leave it out: The salad – great as a starter, main course, side or garnish for grilled fish or meats – is super-customizable. Give it a modern Tex-Mex/Mexican accent, or Greek, or Italian.

Chiringuito Seafood Paella

Chiringuito Seafood Paella

One of my favorite summer dinners is seafood paella cooked outside on a grill, and this recipe – adapted from Anya Von Bremzen's The New Spanish Table – is my favorite version. Start with a few tapas, then Gazpacho Sevillano, and you've got yourself a virtual vacation in Spain. 

The Chicken that Killed Grandpa

The Chicken that Killed Grandpa

Easy to put together, this one-dish main course takes full advantage of summer's bounty.

Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb

Grilled butterflied leg of lamb

Easy and fabulous. Add Ultimate Hummus, Charred Eggplant Salad or Red Pepper Harissa Dip for a wonderful Mediterranean feast (or collect all three!). Quinoa, Pea and Mint Tabbouleh or Warm Summer Salad Without Borders – or any simple grilled veg – are dreamy accompaniments. 

Berry and Peach Crisp

Berry and Peach Crisp

This is the crisp that will turn any non-baker into a dessert genius: super-easy and crazy-good.

Stone Fruit Tart with Thyme

Stone Fruit Tart with Thyme

Peaches, plums, nectarines, apricot: Whatever stone fruit's the ripest and most delicious at the moment goes onto the super-tender and buttery short crust at this base of this gorgeous tart. 

Strawberry-Mezcal Ice Cream

Strawberry-Mezcal Ice Cream

Last, but most definitely and emphatically not least, is our dreamy, mezcal-spiked strawberry ice cream. Whether you go all out and make lamb barbacoa and your own corn tortillas, or run around the corn and pick up tacos, it'll make any summer day an awesome one. 

How to be blown away by your own gazpacho

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If you cook a lot, you've probably made gazpacho before. Maybe you've even made it dozens of times. But how often has it blown you away?

Just as I thought.

And just as we're heading into prime tomato season, it seems the right time to give the perennially popular cold soup – whose birthplace is southern Spain – a fresh look. As I wrote in a story that snagged me a James Beard Journalism Award some years ago, the soup's roots go back a long way: It was born sometime between the 7th and 13th centuries (depending on who you ask). In any case, it pretty clearly predates the arrival of tomatoes in Europe, which may come as a surprise to anyone who knows gazpacho as a cold tomato soup with cucumbers and peppers thrown in. In fact, gazpacho was originally a cold soup of pounded bread, garlic and salt with olive oil and vinegar pounded in. Some of those ingredients are often forgotten by modern American cooks, which is one of the many reasons gazpacho so often falls flat. Bread is essential for body, garlic for a little bite and vinegar for zing; a olive oil adds silkiness and its own fruity personality. 

In the summertime, when the weather's hot and tomatoes are bursting with flavor, gazpacho is one of my favorite things to make and eat. 

I approach it one of two ways. If I want a quick-as-possible version, I soak bread in sherry vinegar, toss it in the food processor with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, a red bell pepper, a little water, garlic, salt and a pinch of red pepper, give it a whirl and serve it right away with a couple of ice cubes in the bowl. Chopped cucumber, peppers and maybe scallions go on top as garnishes. It's pretty damn good.

But if I want a version that's absolutely stunning, I take just a couple of extra steps – peeling and seeding the tomatoes, straining the intensely-flavored juice that runs out of them and adding that to the sherry vinegar-soaking bread. I use a vegetable peeler to peel the red bell pepper. And after I purée the soup in the food processor, I give it a whirl with an immersion blender, to make it super-smooth and silky. The few minutes extra results in a gazpacho that's out-of-this-world elegant. 

A great Andalusian gazpacho depends on two things: ripe tomatoes with fabulous flavor, and the right balance of ingredients – including the vinegar and olive oil. If you get your hands on great tomatoes and use them in this recipe, I'm pretty sure you'll be blown away: 

Either way, I generally use the same or garnishes. If I make the super-smooth version, I'll take more care by dicing them finely rather then chopping them in a hurry – and sometimes add radishes and/or avocados. I can't think of a more stunning vegan summertime starter.

You can also follow the lead of chefs, and get all creative with the garnishes. Want to go super-splashy, maybe for a special dinner party? Top each bowl with a spoonful of lump crabmeat or diced cooked shrimp (or boiled tiny bay shrimp), plus some diced ripe avocado and a few pretty sprigs of frisée.

Whether you go the super-smooth route or the quicker route, I think you'll love it. Go ahead: Give it a whirl! 

 RECIPE: Gazpacho Sevillano