THE RECIPE
Serves 2. Ready in 1 hour.
Using a vegetable peeler, remove the skin from 500g of aubergines (that’s about 2 decent-sized ones) and slice them in half, top to bottom. Cut each half into 3 thick wedges.
Melt 30g of butter with 150ml of olive oil in a wide, shallow pan over a moderate heat. Place the aubergine pieces in the hot butter and oil, cover with a lid and let them cook for 7-10 minutes until pale gold on the underside. Turn each piece with kitchen tongs or a palette knife and cook the other side.
Peel a 35-40g lump of ginger, then grate to a purée using a fine-tooth grater (you need about 1 heaped tbsp). Peel and thinly slice 2 plump cloves of garlic. Add the ginger and garlic to the pan with ½ tsp of salt, a grinding of black pepper and 1 tsp each of ground turmeric and cinnamon. Let the spices sizzle briefly, then pour in 400ml of water and bring to the boil. Let it bubble enthusiastically, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
Lower the heat so the liquid bubbles gently, cover with a lid, then leave to simmer, uncovered, for at least 25 minutes, or until the aubergines are truly tender and silky. They should be so soft you could crush them between your fingers. Trickle in 1 tbsp of honey.
To make the yoghurt sauce, put 100g of thick, natural yoghurt into a bowl, and cut 60g cucumber in half lengthways. Scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon and discard them, then coarsely grate the flesh. Squeeze the flesh in the palm of your hand to remove excess juice. Stir the grated cucumber into the yoghurt. Shred 6 mint leaves and stir them in. Roughly chop 1 tbsp of pistachios and fold them into the yoghurt sauce. Serve the aubergines warm, with the yoghurt sauce.
– Don’t hurry the cooking of this. The spices and aromatics need time to soften and marry. The honey may sound unusual, despite its affinity with aubergines and yoghurt, but it is, I think, essential to the balance of the dish.
– Olive oil helps change the texture of the aubergine’s flesh from inedible to delectably soft and silky. Reduce the by covering the aubergines with a lid as they cook. They will part steam, part fry, and you will use less oil.
– You may like some rice with this. I suggest steamed brown basmati.