Delicious Organic Honey and Harissa Eggplants

This side dish recipe uses up several eggplants at once. so you’ll quickly go through the excess from your garden. White, stripy, long or purple types can be used.

I found this recipe first in the Delicious magazine dated June2010 and have made it many times. Wow that first time was such a surprise, it was table-banging good. I have adjusted it for our fresh home grown ingredients just a little.

2 eggplants (about 750g total)
100ml olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 heaped tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger or 3 teasp dried ginger
2 tablespoon ground cumin
½ teasp each ground cinnamon and coriander
2 teasp harissa paste* (recipe below)
½ cup honey
3 teasp sundried tomato paste (I make our own from our organic heirloom tomatoes, but you can buy jars of it at food stores)
1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
Coriander or mint leaves to serve

Preheat oven to 220C. Cut your eggplants into thick wedges as shown in the picture. Put these into a baking tray with ½ cup of the oil and toss them around to coat. Roast eggplant wedges in the oven until golden. About ½ hour.

While they’re cooking, heat a large frypan and add the remaining olive oil, garlic, and ginger. Stir over heat 30 seconds. Stir in all the remaining spices, honey, Harissa, tomato paste, juice and some salt to taste. Take off the heat until eggplant are cooked.p
Once the eggplants are done, toss them into the frypan with the spicy mix. Heat over medium heat until they go caramelly and look hot and coated.
They are now done. Serve in a bowl with the leaves as a garnish. It’s great wrapped into Lebanese wraps with Greek yoghurt and rice too.

Harissa Paste:

You can buy small jars of spicy harissa paste at deli’s or you can make your own. It’s a rich, heady, fragrant paste with a liberal dash of chilli, used in Moroccan cooking.

10 small hot red chillies, half seeds removed
2 red capsicums, roasted and skins removed
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

Blend all in a food processor until smooth. Keep in the fridge.