Eggplant with Feta Cheese

  --> -->
Eggplant and feta cheese love each other. This is an easy-to-make dip for any occasion or "not occasion". It is perfect as a side dish on the dinner table or as a simple snack in the afternoon with fresh bread. It's very important not to forget to buy good bread to serve it with, or if you are ambitious, why not bake it yourself? In this recipe you can see that we added sumac, which is a commonly used spice in the Middle East. Don’t worry If you can't find sumac; it's not a must. If you have zatar at home you can use it as a substitute. But it will taste as it should also without sumac or zatar.
  
Ingredients
2 medium size eggplants
150 g feta cheese
1 tsp sumac
Olive oil
Salt
 
Topping: parsley
 
1. Heat the oven to 225°C.
 
2. Grill the eggplants for a few minutes on the gas stove (see picture) to give it a smoky flavor.
 
3. Place the eggplant in the oven and cook until soft all the way through, approx. 20 min. Let cool.
 
4. Peel of the charred skin and cut of the stems.
 
5. Mix the eggplant with feta cheese, some olive oil, and sumac. Season with salt.
 
6. Top with some chopped parsley, and drip some olive oil on top of the dish.
 
Enjoy! 

Step: 2

   

Step: 4

Tahini

Tahini is a very common ingredient in Middle Eastern cooking. In Israel you will not find a single home without a jar of raw tahini in the fridge. It’s most commonly used as a flavouring ingredient in dishes such as humous and baba ganoush, but it’s also frequently used for other dishes with meat, fish and vegetables. We just ate the yummiest soup with eggplant and tahini. The bottom line is, you can use tahini for almost anything.
 
So what is tahini? Tahini is a thick paste made from ground sesame seeds, it has a very strong sesame flavor. Combined with food and sweets its special flavor provides an interesting twist. Tahini might be tricky to find outside Israel. You probably need to go to a well-stocked store or an Arabic store. You can also buy it online. In Sweden Willys carries tahini. If you don’t already have a jar of raw tahini in your fridge, we strongly recommend that you to get one.