Monday, June 25, 2012

Israeli food, and a recipe for Roasted Aubergine (Eggplant) with Feta

Roasted eggplant with feta / Pommupüree fetaga

 I'll be eating lots of Israeli food in the coming few days, together with few other foodbloggers from England, France and the US, and you'll bound to hear much more about it. In advance of the foodie journey, we were all sent a gorgeous coffee-table/cookbook by Riga-born and Israel-based food writer and cookbook author Janna Gur, called The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey. I've been browsing through the book and sticking enough yellow post-it notes on the pages to give my family and friends menu ideas till Christmas. The first dish (and certainly not the last one) I tried was a little number with roasted aubergines/eggplants.

Lovely on some rye bread crisps!

Roasted eggplants / Roasted aubergines / Röstitud pommud

Please keep your fingers crossed that this Nordic foodie won't collapse under the Israeli sun - the dry heat is somewhat intimidating, I must admit. Nordic summers with about 20 Celsius and few degrees above that are what I'm enjoying most, you see, but sometimes we need to challenge ourselves, especially in the name of good food and good company ;)

Roasted aubergine with feta 
Serves four to six

Roasted eggplant with feta / Röstitud pommupüree fetaga

2 firm medium-sized aubergines/eggplants, rinsed
200 g feta cheese, crumbled
4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
a pinch of sumac
a pinch of dried oregano or marjoram leaves
3 chopped spring onions
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Roast the rinsed eggplants either on an open flame (if you've got a gas grill) or simply in a hot oven until soft and blackened. Cool slightly, then peel (discard the skin) and mash the roasted flesh with a knife and/or a fork.
Add the crumbled feta cheese and olive oil, season with sumac and oregano (I used a close relative, marjoram). Add the chopped spring onions (I used a mixture of chives, green onions and Siberian garlic chives from my garden), season to taste with salt and pepper, if necessary.


Note: if you season the aubergine/eggplant flesh while it's still slightly warm, then the flavours are absorbed much better!

Serve at once or cover and keep in a cool place until ready to serve. 

Other bloggers cooking from this book:
David Lebovitz tried the Tu bi'Shvat Cake
Family Friendly Food baked the Apple, Cinnamon and Walnuts cake
Noshes, Thoughts and Reves made the Beetroot and Pomegranate Salad

NB! Note that you can follow Nami-Nami foodblog updates - and my other food-related tweets - in Twitter now: https://twitter.com/#!/PilleNamiNami

15 comments:

Katarina said...

Sounds really delicious!

Devadatta said...

Hello Pille
Thanks for the roasted aubergine with feta recipe.
I'll create one for sure, my kids are gonna like it :)
If you don't mind, can you submit your roasted aubergine with feta photo in http://www.foodporn.net ?
It's a food photography site full of all DIY food pictures from members around the world. Or perhaps you'd like to submit by yourself? Let me know when you did, so I can share it.

Anonymous said...

I'm Israeli, and I must say dry heat isn't the issue, it's the humid heat we have in the summer that's hard to deal with (for us too!). But I think you're coming over early enough that you'll miss it.

The food here is fantastic, and there's lots of delicious fresh produce. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Kalyn Denny said...

Love the new blog header, and this sounds amazing!

Tiina said...

Tegin röstitud pommut fetaga, aga see ei maitsenud nii väga, sumahh ilmselt häiris seal sees, nii lisasin veel piparmünti, koriandrit ja sidrunimahla, aga need ei parandanud asja eriti. Ehk on homme parem.

live sports said...

great post

Jael said...

Mmm,I love aubergine salad:) I have that same book;and really like it.I am dying to hear about your Israeli food tour!

Anonymous said...

Always looking for new eggplant ways and this seems lovely for summer.
The trip/tour ... WOW! Wonderful food and such a cast;-) do enjoy yourself.

مطبخ رمضان said...

THANKS ALOT VERY MUCH

Ariella Fixler Alon said...

A great recipe!
I love eggplants!
Tomorrow when we meet I'll take you to an amazing gourmet chef restaurant where we cook together a few recipes, and certainly one of them will be with eggplant.
I'm sure you'll like it.
I am waiting impatiently for tomorrow ...
A big hug for now
Ariella

Jeff @ Cheeseburger said...

I'm going to prepare this on open flame. This is a great healthy recipe! Thanks for sharing.

Eha said...

Hello Pille - First of all, a lovely recipe! Am blogging on your site for the first time and really laugh at the small size of our world :) ! My name is Eha, I was born in Tallinn and I live in the state of NSW in Australia. Guess where I found you: at one of my very favourite food blogs 'Food Bridge' in Israel!! Peab naerma!!!

Linda said...

Not sure what sumac is, but this is definitely worth to try since I love eggplant.

Anonymous said...

This looks really delicious. I am also excited to see you are now on twitter.

Pille said...

Hovkonditorn - I love aubergine in any shape and form, and this dish was no different :)

Devadatta - you're welcome.

Anon- now that I'm back from Israel, I can say that I did survive, though it wasn't easy. Luckily our bus was air-conditioned! Food was excellent!

Kalyn - Ximena is so talented (just like your brother!), and I'm honoured that she's agreed to do some banners for me.

Tiina - sumahhi võib teinekord ka välja jätta, aga mulle see täitsa meeldis selle pommupüree sees.

Yaelian - what are your favourite recipes from the book?

Tanna - the cast was great indeed :)

Ariella- thank you for being such a nice buddy in Israel!

Jeff - I roasted it in a hot oven, but of course, open-flame roasting is even better!!!

Eha - what a coincidence!! Welcome to Nami-Nami and I hope you'll find plenty of inspiration here, also for cooking Estonian dishes :)

Linda - sumac are the ground fruits of a specific plan popular in Middle East and elsewhere. The dark red powder has a sharp, lemony flavour. Google it!

Katrin - tweeting can be quite fun, I've discovered :)