Roasted aubergine with chili and herbs

Today I want to share a recipe that I made some time ago to cleanup the fridge from leftover aubergines, herbs and red chili and liked so much that I made it again several other times.
I literally hate wasting food, even a piece of stale bread, as I think it's a very bad habit, a sign of lack of respect for the environment, for the many people who have limited access to food, for the work of those people who produce our food and finally for our own money, because throwing food away is an indubitable waste of money. I know that the value of two slices of bread or an eggplant or a yogurt is very limited, but if we throw something every day at the end of the year we have probably wasted quite a good amount of food. And if every single family all around the world (at least the wealthier part) does the same, it's obvious that the wastage of food at a global level is a real and huge issue.

Beetroot and aubergine "fattoush" salad

This beetroot and aubergine "fattoush"is my favorite salad lately. 

Since the first time I prepared it, few weeks ago, I have been making again and again without getting bored of it. Actually each time I made it, I tried to refine the initial recipe with some variations until I finally found the "perfect" combination of ingredients, at least for my taste.

But, to be honest, this is not a recipe that I have developed totally by myself. In fact it was during a cooking demo - held at Bloomie's Kitchen by Troy Payne, head chef at Cle restaurant - that I had the chance to know and try for the first time the recipe, and actually loved it at the first taste.

Chef Troy described the recipe as his personal take on the fattoush salad, one of the most popular and prepared Middle Eastern dish; and also a way to make more appetizing two vegetables, aubergine and beetroot, that he personally doesn't rave about.

With this introduction, and considering the fact that, on the contrary, I love both aubergines and beets, as well as fattoush indeed, I couldn't not to like this salad!

Roasted aubergine with saffron yogurt

Something that I really enjoy when I cook is to try always new recipes, whether inspired by cookbooks, magazines, blogs or websites or developed by myself.
With the consequence that there are many recipes that I made only once, and not because they were not good or I didn't like, but just to try something different.

But despite this - good, bad, weird? - habit of mine, there are several recipes that I particularly love and regularly make. As is the case of this "roasted aubergine with saffron yoghurt", a recipe from the favorite of mine "Ottolenghi The Cookbook" (probably the most consulted cookbook in my bookshelf, from which I tried many recipes, some of them also posted on this blog - for more details check here).

Marinated eggplants with tahini and oregano

There is a book that is giving me great inspirations lately: "Ottolenghi The Cookbook" (not so original tough). Even if in my wishlist for a long time, this book is a relatively recent addition to my cookbook shelf. And since I bought it I'm trying one recipe after another.
When I get a new cookbook, I use to go through it in quite deep detail and place a sticker on the pages with the recipes I wish to try, so as to find them easily in future. Whit this book, after reading the first fifteen pages of recipes, I realized that I was placing a sticker on nearly all pages: the style of cooking, the ingredients used, the presentation, everything is so close to my taste that I really would like to make almost everything, from vegetables to meat and fish, to baked goods. And so I changed my approach and decided to give a sort of priority to the most inspiring recipes: I placed stickers just on those I want to make first, but even so the book is full of colored post-it jutting out from the pages. I have already prepared several dishes taken from the "to-do list" and I have to say that all of them came out very good, and sometimes even outstanding.

Mediterranean tart (eggplant, cherry tomatoes and ricotta)

Fast post today, just to share the recipe of a very nice savory tart that inspired me as soon as I saw it on the cover of the Food magazine's May issue.
Since I had invited some friends for a dinner at home, I decided to try it for the occasion. I think that a quiche is a perfect start for an informal meal with friends and has many advantages too: it can be prepared in advance, and served hot, lightly warm or at room temperature, especially during summertime; it is very beautiful and, even more important, delicious.
And if there is any leftover, you have the lunch ready for the day after: all you need is a green or mixed salad and a slice of bread (and - why not? - a glass of beer).
Since I liked the combination of ingredients suggested in the recipe I did not make any modification, except for reducing a bit the quantity of halloumi cheese to put on top; but both the pastry and the filling are suitable for a big range of variations and future experimentation.

Italian inspiration: Orecchiette with eggplant and roast tomatoes

Making a recipe read on a cookbook, magazine, website or blog is somehow reassuring. If the recipe has been issued somewhere (and in the connected world we live in, it is very likely to find the same recipe pictured and published more than once) it means it has a long story: somebody conceived it, made it, tasted, maybe improved it and made it taste to others, who probably gave suggestions on how to refine it. At this point the road goes down: the creator makes the dish again, takes a picture (hopefully beautiful), write down the recipe with some comment or history behind it and releases it. Something with all this work behind is for sure reliable and probably worth trying, unless it is too distant from our taste or believes (related to food, I mean).
But making a recipe of this kind requires some preparation: at least one needs the list of the ingredients before going shopping. Considering how I do food shopping, especially for fresh stuff - basically I am inspired by the freshness, quality and, why not, appearance of what I found in the shop, be it a fruit and vegetable market, a butcher shop, a fish market or even the supermarket - it is not easy for me to replicate a tested and trusted recipe. I mean, I like to try recipes found in book, magazines or the web, but for me it is easier to do it if I have all ingredients already available at home. In most cases, when I prepare a new dish this is improvised on the basis of what I have in the fridge and in the pantry. But the inspiration for choosing the ingredients and deciding how to cook them comes from a mix of sources: memories of something tasted in the past, family recipes, a glimpse to some pictures, recipes rapidly read somewhere and, of course, the mood of the moment.
The recipe I share today has a story like this: one day at the end of the summer of a couple of years ago I had some eggplants in the fridge and wanted to make some pasta with them. I initially thought to "pasta alla Norma", a famous Sicilian dish, typical of the city of Catania (where the composer Vincenzo Bellini, author of the opera Norma, was born) and made with deep-fried eggplant, tomato sauce, grated ricotta salata and basil. But I wanted to make something lighter, then excluded to fry eggplant, and did not have time to make the tomato sauce. Then I thought to a dish tasted in Puglia, made with tomatoes (not remember if sauted cherry tomatoes or tomato sauce) and ricotta forte (a very typical cheese of this beautiful region). But I had on hand ricotta salata! What I did was to pan-fry the eggplant and cherry tomatoes in two separate pans, cook orecchiette in boiling water, and finally mix all in the same pan to combine all the flavors, add some fresh basil and grated ricotta salata and the recipe was born. We liked it very much and I made this several times before making an improvement: instead of roasting tomatoes in a pan, I started to bake them in the oven with herbs and garlic; much better! The oven roasting enhances the flavors of cherry tomatoes and, at the same time, preserves them from getting mushy. At this point the recipe had been finalized and this is how I make it now. Unfortunately here in Dubai I haven't found  the ricotta salata yet, then I use scamorza, but the dish is delicious as well.