Roasted Aubergine with Black Garlic, Pine Nuts and Basil

Photo from the book - What I'm aiming for

I was just asking for trouble trying to knock up a fancy dish mid-week, wasn't I? I didn't know until I'd assembled all the ingredients for the mise-en-place photo and cut into the aubergine that they were both brown in the middle. Stale? OK? Edible?

I wasn't sure but decided to plug on with the recipe anyhow. I scraped the brownish bits off the eggplants and got the remaining thin pieces into the oven with the EVOO and sea salt. The easy bit.

Assembling the topping for serving was easy enough, if I had just managed to pay closer attention to the pinenuts while I was ripping the basil leaves off their stems. But, not too badly scorched.

On to assembling the dressing. The black garlic is a new ingredient for me so I hope that's how they are supposed to smell. Naturally I am halving the recipe and reducing the amount of black garlic. Will two be enough? Naturally I don't have rose harissa but I have regular harissa and rose water. Will a splash of rosewater turn regular harissa into rose harissa? Why not? And I don't have urfa chili flakes, or even know what they are so it'll be the chilli flakes I do have.

By the time I scraped out the brownish bits, there wasn't much flesh left

Ingredients for the dressing

Into the mini food processor went the harissa, black garlic, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, not-urfa chili flakes, some olive oil and - and here is the most surprising of a list of unusual ingredients - cocoa powder.

The recipe then expects you to mix the dressing with the roaster aubergine and leave to meld for an hour or so. Not happening! I didn't realise before setting out, that this is a cold dish. Put some yoghurt on the plate, add the eggplant and top with the pine nuts and basil. I may have been a little heavy on the lemon juice and chili flakes but other than than, it was very tasty and definitely one for a repeat, with a better eggplant and more attention to the small details.