Aubergines Roasted with Tahinia
a lush recipe from an unmissable cookbook
Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. ‘ Find archived recipes on my recipe index.
My book Tenderheart is available from Books are Magic, Kitchen, Arts and Letters, Book Larder, Bold Fork Books and also here or here.
Welcome to 2025. This week’s newsletter is free for all.
As we head into a new year of vegetables, I’m sharing a recipe from a book that I consider as one of the best of 2024.
I purchased a copy of Bethlehem when it was published in the USA last summer. I was immediately mesmerized by it, the ironclad sense of place, the spirited and moving stories of family, imbued with memories that are so vivid, they effortlessly step off the page and into our own kitchens. I immediately returned to the bookstore and bought another copy for a friend.
The author, Fadi Kattan, is a Franco-Palestinian chef who grew up in his book’s eponymous city in the West Bank, discovering a love of cooking in his late grandmother’s and mother’s kitchens. He has two restaurants, one called Fawda in Bethlehem and another Akub in London (update: actually Fadi recently opened his third restaurant, called Louf in Toronto which highlights Canadian local, indigenous, and Palestinian ingredients - thanks for reader @
for reminding me!). His food is storied, brimming with a clear purpose to honor and celebrate the cuisine of this culture. During Covid, Fadi filmed a series called Teta's Kitchen, where he traveled across the country to cook with grandmothers.Bethlehem offers everything that crave in a cookbook – stories and recipes with heart, one that I can read cover to cover, one that transports me, and most importantly, one that moves me. It also help’s that Fadi’s food is so vibrant, full of life and colour. It’s not a vegetarian cookbook but there are lots of veg recipes, like the one I am sharing today – roasted aubergines (eggplant) with Tahinia. This recipe is summery in vibe, so it’s perfect for my southern hemisphere friends. For those up north, I encourage you still to try it using supermarket globe eggplant or slender Chinese/Japanese eggplant. I made this the other day, and it was a mid-winter revelation, a vibrant reminder of another time, when the earth is kissed by the warmth of the sun. It turns out that during the winter, devouring a plate of eggplant smothered in tahini, pomegranate seeds and herbs is like coming up for air. I liked this feeling it a lot.
This recipe is shared with permission from his publisher Hardie Grant.
For those in the northern hemisphere who are currently experiencing frigid temperatures, here are a few recipe suggestions from my newsletter archives:
Mushroom oats-otto (mushroom oat risotto) / Vegan nom banh chok (Khmer noodles) / Baked risotto with greens and peas / Mushroom ragu Bianca / Pav bhaji
I spoke to
about weeknight cooking for her podcast - check out the convo here.Everyone is talking about vegetables right now, as we rebound from the heaviness of holiday eating. Here are my fave veg meals right now:
Monday: Start the week with a glorious spinach-y dish - crispy gnocchi with spinach and feta, which has deconstructed spanakopita vibes
Tuesday: If you’re hot, try this no cook Chilled Zucchini Soup With Lemon and Basil or for those who need warming, opt for this pantry winner Lemony pearl barley and spinach soup
Wednesday: No effort at all is needed for this crunchy noodle and tofu salad
Thursday: I made vegetarian onigiri for dinner last week and you should too. Served it with a cucumber salad, nori snacks, and
Friday: End the week with a bang, these miso mushroom vegetarian sausage rolls are unforgettable and surprisingly easy to whip up. They also freeze well so prep them, wrap them well and bake when ready.
🥦 My cookbook, Tenderheart is for cooking vegetables, all year round. Pick up your copy here. It is also mostly vegan (or vegan-izable) and gluten-free adaptable.
Aubergines (eggplant) roasted with tahinia
© Excerpted with permission from Bethlehem by Fadi Kattan, published by Hardie Grant Publishing, May 2024, RRP $40.00 Hardcover, by Hetty Lui McKinnon for To Vegetables, With Love.
In Fadi’s words: We use aubergine (eggplant) in all manner of recipes. It is a wonderful vegetable when it’s roasted, charred, and smoky, and we all know how fantastic baba ghanouj is. This recipe works as a starter or as part of a shared table and it screams summer to my palate.
Serves 4
4 large eggplants (aubergines)
olive oil
95 g / ⅓ cup tahinia (tahini sauce)
4 garlic cloves
Juice of 2 lemons
2 chilies, finely chopped
½ tsp fine salt
6 tablespoons water
1 bunch dill, fronds coarsely chopped and stems discarded
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 tablespoons pomegranate seeds
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
Preheat the oven to 200°C / 400°F.
Rub the eggplants with the olive oil and place them in a roasting pan. Roast for about 45 minutes, turning them every 10 minutes so they cook evenly.
Meanwhile, prepare the tahinia sauce. Combine the tahinia, 2½ tablespoons of the olive oil, 2 of the garlic cloves, the lemon juice, chillies, and salt in a food processor. With the motor running, add the water slowly and continue mixing until the sauce is smooth.
Place the eggplants on a serving dish, and press down so the skin cracks. Drizzle on the tahinia sauce, and sprinkle the dill, parsley, nigella seeds and coriander seeds on top. Then sprinkle on the pomegranate seeds and the pine nuts.
Thinly slice the remaining 2 garlic cloves. Heat a little oil in a small pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and fry until golden, 2 minutes. Drizzle the oil with the garlic on top, and serve.
Io Vegetables, With Love is dedicated to vegetables and it is a joy to bring you a new recipe every week. Thank you to everyone who subscribes, especially to paid subscribers who make this work possible.
Bless you for this! I'm half middle-eastern and the Aubergine recipe and reference to Fadi brought me so much comfort.
If you liked Bethlehem, you will love Filasteen. Both are incredible books, written with depth and heart by incredible people. Heart breaking that these people, the Palestinians, are being so brutally exterminated and their culture erased by zionists.