Imam Bayildi- Melting Sweet Eggplants for the pre-Easter Table.

The tender, yielding, mouth pleasing richness of texture is described in Greek as "λουκουμι"- loukoumi- what we know as Turkish Delight (a name which, in turn, is semi-jokingly called an oxymoron by more conservative English-speaking Greeks). Meats- slow roasted or gently braised ("melt in the mouth") dishes- are often called "loukoumi," and so are these magnificent melting eggplants, stuffed with sliced onions that are themselves nearly falling apart, sweet and fragrant. They really are a Turkish delight- known and beloved in all the neighboring countries as well, prepared as if their own. It's ideal for the Orthodox fast, and for vegetarian and vegan friends. and it is beautiful on the table- those paisley shaped eggplant halves and the golden onions in their orange oil glitter like gems. 

Oil elevates the humble ingredients. Like with our other oil rich dishes- green beans in oil and tomato, cuttlefish in wine- you need a lot to get the desired oil-bathed tenderness, but the excess floats free of the dish (tinted and richly scented with the best notes- you could just ignore it, leaving it in a fragrant pool on your plate). Apart from this lavishness, the dish is modest in expense- just a couple of eggplants and two or three onions, a bay leaf, some allspice berries, salt and pepper. And time- it cooks slowly, but mainly untended.

We will need:

2 large eggplants

3 onions

1 large tomato

120 ml/ 1/2 C olive oil

a bay leaf

whole allspice (if you have none, use a modest pinch of cinnamon, and an even smaller one of cloves) 

salt and pepper

parsley to garnish

Halve the eggplants lengthwise and score them from end to end all over, making sure to score deeply into the stem end- the slowest part to soften. Salt them all over like crazy to draw out any of the bitterness that eggplants sometimes have. 

This will draw out some moisture as well. Rinse the salt off and squeeze them dry-

The flesh of the eggplant- spongy before-  is now dried and more compact. The scoring lets the oil cook them deeply, without getting soaked in and making them leaden. Put just under half of the oil in a skillet and warm it to medium. Place the eggplants in the pan- as snugly as you like- in fact if they don't quite fit, they will soon as they begin to soften and take up. 

As they slowly cook, the eggplant color will be lost and they will turn a deep tan- this is no great loss as they will be cut-side up anyway

While they are cooking, peel and halve the onions and slice them as thinly as you can. Change the positions of the eggplants from time to time- the ones in the center may singe a little otherwise as the outer ones stay firm- and let them gently fry until they are tender when pierced all over with a fork. The cut side will be golden and browned in spots. Move them to a plate, and put the onions into the tasty dirty pan with the rest of the oil, the bay leaf, and four or five whole allspice (or ground spices), and let them slowly saute, stirring once in a while. After about 20 minutes or a little more they should look like this:

Grate the tomato on the large holes of the box grater and add the pulp to the pan along with salt and pepper to taste, and cook a while longer until the oil floats free and it is almost syrupy:

Stuff the eggplant halves with the onions and put them stuffed side up back into the skillet on very low heat, just to give the bottoms a chance to soften more and the flavors to blend. Serve warm or at room temperature, sprinkled with parsley if you like, with bread for the sauce and some feta on the side, and maybe a wine that is not ultra dry to play up all that soothing sweetness- loukoumi indeed. 

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Ricotta Pie Esperdy- a Lush and Delicate Easter Dessert

Known to the rest of the world simply as "Ricotta Pie," this luscious milky spring dessert can only ever be called ricotta pie Esperdy in my mind. My friend is fortunate in her culinary heritage- Spain and Italy, this delicious Easter pie I suppose from the latter. Sometime before Good Friday she would come down from the upper West side to visit us in SoHo, this finest pie in an aluminum tin in hand, a surer sign of Easter than even these:

These blossoming branches are in front of my house in Thessaloniki but there was a tree just like this
outside of the Grand Union supermarket on University Place. It was our first sign of spring.

The pie has a mildness that would make it a perfect with lemon zest, or orange, or cinnamon, or shavings of chocolate.... Try to keep it plain. Restraint is rewarded with a pronounced milkiness that is lush and delicate, just like spring.

I've adapted the excellent recipe for European measurements and a local ingredient, keeping I hope the essence of the pie. The pies I knew in New York had a traditional pastry crust, but I think there is some flexibility there- I made a crust much like the dough of my Hamentaschen recipe- making for a happy duo-holiday spring recipe. I also adjusted it for my baking tins, scaling it up a by half to make two quite large pies- tarts really. It's no more work to make two, and it's a shame to keep them to yourself. If my friend had, I'd never have tasted them, and now I cannot imagine Easter without.

These want a hot oven- 200 C/400 F.

For the crust, we will need -

250 g/ 1 generous C butter

120 g/ 2/3 C sugar

1 egg

2 ml/ scant 1/2 tsp. salt

A little vanilla (homemade here)

370 g/ almost 3 C flour

Beat together the sugar and the butter until fluffy. Add the egg, salt, and vanilla and beat again, then gently mix in the flour to make a sticky dough. These tart pans are 24 cm/ 9 1/2"- the dough comes away cleanly from the deep flutes of this pan if you oil it well. Divide the dough and put a half in each pan, pressing it very thinly on the bottom and thickly on the sides- making quite sure there are no cracks for the filling to seep out of. These are custard pies- the filling is liquid when it goes in and the bottom crust remains soft when baked; the ample crusty outer edge more than makes up for it.

For the filling:

700 g/ 24 oz. "Anthotiro" (farmer's cheese), or ricotta

250 g/ 1 1/4 C sugar

pinch salt

vanilla to taste (I used the seeds from one pod)

3 eggs

50 ml/ 3 T cornstarch

360 ml/ 1 1/2 C milk

Beat the cheese and sugar and salt together until fluffy, then add the cornstarch and the eggs, beating until smooth, then adding the milk.

Divide the filling between the tart shells and put them right away in the hot oven. If you have a large oven, place them both on a low rack. Otherwise, switch them top to bottom after about twenty minutes, leaving them in for 40-45 minutes total. A knife put in the filling will just come out clean, and the crust should be a rich golden color. They will be wobbly and puffy when they come out, but will set rather dense and firm, making beautiful slices when chilled. For such a milky dessert we are grateful to the sweet grasses of spring.

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