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Ingredients
- a large, firm eggplant
- olive oil, a good everyday one
- garlic 2 cloves
- yogurt, sheeps if you can 3 or 4 tablespoons
- paprika a pinch or two
- mint leaves a small palmful
Method
- Preheat the oven to 400F (200C).Wipe the eggplant, removing its leaves, and slice it lengthwise down the middle.
- Score across the cut sides, going deep down into the flesh, in a lattice pattern.
- This will help the heat and olive oil penetrate the eggplant.
- Place the halves, cut side up, in a small baking dish or roasting pan, then drizzle generously with olive oil.
- Grind over a little salt, then flip the eggplant halves over, so that their cut sides sit flat on the dish.
- Put the garlic cloves, whole and unpeeled, into the dish too.
- Bake until the eggplant is tender and melting, the flesh translucent with oil.
- This will take a good forty-five minutes, but much will depend on the size of your eggplant, so keep an eye out.
- When the eggplant is totally soft and juicy, lift it onto a plate, squeeze the soft garlic flesh from its skin, and smooth it into the eggplant.
- No need to make a big deal of this, just wipe it over the flesh.
- Spoon over the yogurt, dust very lightly with paprika, and scatter the mint leaves on top.
- Scoop the flesh from the skin as you eat it, mashing it with the yogurt and mint.
