I’ve been following a modern Middle Eastern chef Yotam Assaf Ottolenghi. He is an Israeli-born British chef, restaurateur, and food writer. So many of his dishes are vegetarian, and beautiful. I figured it was worth giving one of his recipes a shot. He’s written many books but also post recipes on his website. He creates dishes that layer color and flavor for maximum impact.

To prepare the puff pastry, we cheated and bought frozen sheets, thawed them and then cut them into nine squares. The recipe suggest that you score a shallow border. I had to Google what that meant, and fortunately found a video they gave me good instructions. We roasted the eggplant in the oven, then scooped out the inners and added lemon juice, garlic, and parsley. We didn’t have any pomegranate seeds, so I sprinkled sumac on top of a dollop of strained whole fat yogurt. The dish looked beautiful, but I thought it would have more flavor. I like the contrasting texture of the yogurt and the eggplant and the crunchiness of the puff pastry.

Since the dish is an appetizer, we decided to make two other dishes and have a version of tapas for lunch today. We made a Spanish shrimp dish with garlic, and a filet with a horseradish cream sauce on a crostini. It was a filling lunch, created a messy kitchen, but was fun to make and tasty. Mom thought the shrimp dish was too spicy, so gave me her extras – yeah me.

Would I make it again? I would modify the eggplant dish a little bit, potentially adding some thing else to the eggplant mixture. I definitely use the puff pastry cups in a different way for another dish. That wasn’t too difficult. As for the fillet, the horseradish cream sauce needed more umpff.