Tuck into cheesy stuffed eggplants with tomato and onion
There aren't too many ways I don't like eggplant, if it's cooked right. And that often involves an ungodly amount of olive oil, since eggplant soaks up the stuff as if there were an impending shortage. The reputation of eggplant as an oil hog has even resulted in the name of a classic Turkish dish, imam bayildi, which translates to "the imam fainted." Legend says that's what happened when he discovered just how much oil went into the eggplant dishes his new wife was cooking.
I love the traditional version of the dish: Even when the oil use is more restrained, the eggplant - stuffed with a garlicky tomato-onion mixture - ends up with a luxuriously soft, rich texture.
My friend Aglaia Kremezi keeps a light touch with the oil in her Greek take on the dish and ups the ante with the stuffing. Greek cooks are masters at stuffing vegetables, and Kremezi adds bell peppers, walnuts and cheese to this party, along with the warming touch of cumin, the spark of chile flakes and a blanket of tomato sauce.
It's exactly what I feel like cooking right now, letting the eggplants bake twice just as the nights turn into sweater weather - and what I feel like eating, too, as I start to put behind me the raw tomatoes, salads and cold soups of summer. Like so many other Mediterranean vegetable dishes, it also tastes great at room temperature and as leftovers a day, two or three later. That makes it good anytime, anywhere.
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