Persian-style Eggplant Yogurt Salad

This Iranian dish, called Borani-e Bademjan, is one of a variety of eggplant-yogurt salads that are easy, delicious, and – after cooling the fridge for a few hours – refreshing in hot weather. One can easily vary the seasonings to reflect different cuisines: paprika and parsley for Turkish, garam masala, coriander and cilantro for Indian, miscellaneous spices for Miscellaneous. The dish is especially good with the stiff, dense yogurt sold in Iranian groceries, such as Golchin brand, but is delicious with runny varieties as well.

This dinner, which consisted of yogurt salad, a greens salad, and homemade flatbread, was aided by sous-chef and photographer Dan, whom I also credit with conceiving the name “Aubergenius.”

And also credited with discovering a really great $8 wine.

The flatbread I made was tasty, but not quite good enough to post a recipe, so I’ll just recommend that you use your favorite bread recipe or storebought pita.

This flatbread recipe called for the breads to be cooked dry in the pan, but they were improved by frying in olive oil.

Ingredients

1 large or 2 medium/small eggplants

12-16 oz plain yogurt

A handful of fresh mint leaves

1 clove garlic

Salt, cumin and coriander to taste

Cut the eggplant into slivers by slicing down the length of the eggplant, cutting long strips, and halving the strips.

Roast the slivers on a baking sheet at 350°, coating them with a generous quantity of olive oil (i.e., if they don’t turn yellow-green, it’s not enough oil). Be sure to toss the eggplant slices every 10 minutes. Cooking time takes about 20-30 minutes total. Meanwhile, mix the yogurt, diced (or scissor-snipped) mint leaves, crushed garlic, and salt to taste. Add a small dash of cumin and coriander – I prefer a small quantity of spice to avoid overwhelming the mint flavor.

Use of an oversized, red plastic bowl is imperative.

Remove eggplant slices when they are soft all the way through, without any spongy patches, and have a nice golden brown sear.

The proper state of oily mushiness.

Mix eggplant slivers with the yogurt sauce and add more salt if needed.

This salad is delicious warm and cold. If you wish to make a richer salad, you can mash up feta into the yogurt in lieu of salt.

Sous-chef, an empty bowl, and a kitty strung out on catnip.