Join us for a warm bowl of wheat berries, garlic, pan-roasted eggplant and a bright and sunny cream sauce. You’ll serve 4 with this recipe, but save some for your lunch tomorrow; it tastes even better the next day.
Ingredients
Roasted Eggplant Bowls with Saffron & Lemon Cream
2cupsWheat berries or rice
4smalleggplants
2/3cupOlive oil
4Garlic clovessliced
1/2cupLabneh or yogurt
1TbspLemon juice
4strandsSaffron
1TbspKosher salt
1bunchParsleystemmed
Instructions
Place your wheat berries or rice in a pot and fill it to cover your grains by about 2 inches. Add a hefty pinch of salt and cook until tender (between 25-40 minutes, depending on the grains).
Stir the yogurt, lemon, salt and the saffron together. Set aside.
While the grains are cooking, heat a cast iron pan over medium high. Add half of the olive oil and heat for another minute. Add the eggplants, skin side down. Salt over the top of the eggplants and cook until they are starting to brown around the bottom edges. Flip and add the garlic, cooking just until the eggplants are tender. Remove from heat and set aside, reserving the oil in the pan.
Stir a spoonful of your reserved olive oil from the pan into the yogurt. Taste and adjust seasoning (with extra lemon juice or salt)). Make sure your wheat berries are well seasoned and divide into 4 bowls. Top with eggplant, parsley leaves and yogurt sauce. Serve warm.