My friend Hara Alexandrou gave me a basket with these wonderful white eggplants she grows in her garden. As I had mentioned before, we have not been able to produce decent eggplants of any kind in our sandy, poor soil, although we tried for years. I roasted slices of these wonderful eggplants simply dressed with plenty of olive oil, sprinkled with coarsely ground coriander, salt, and Aleppo pepper.
Only once we managed to harvest from our garden a few tiny white eggplants, full of seeds…
As wrote six years ago “…we tried to grow white eggplants, an old traditional Santorini variety, from heirloom seeds I purchased from a British nursery. At the beginning the plants seemed to thrive and filled with purple blossoms; the flowers soon turned into fruit that hanged from the sprigs of our three plants: tiny white eggplants, which we expected to grow to a reasonable size; but in vain… “
No recipe needed.
These white eggplants Hara gave me are sweet, with dense flesh and have no need to be salted before cooking. They are utterly delicious, and I intend to try them in different dishes. For the time being I simply roasted the white eggplant slices which can also be broiled in the oven, or roasted either over charcoal, or on the griddle.
I have added some peppers from our garden –peppers we have quite a few—as well as some sliced sweet onions I got from Maria’s Garden, down the road.
I simply dressed the eggplants and other vegetables with plenty of olive oil, sprinkled with coarsely ground coriander, salt, and Aleppo pepper.
I roasted for about 40 minutes in the middle of the oven, at 375 F (200 C), then drizzled the caramelized vegetables with fresh olive oil, sprinkled with our very aromatic dried local oregano, and I served them on toasted bread with slices of feta, or on a bed of my delicious green Tyrokafteri and some parsley sprigs.
Beautiful blog, Aglaia!! Vicki James Yiannias