Persia and the Caucasus · Volume 10, Rice, Reduction and the Country Beyond the Kebab House

Mirza Ghasemi

Name: Mirza Ghasemi
Total time: 1 h
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Iran
Ingredients: 2 whole aubergines; for frying oil, for frying; 6 to 8 cloves garlic, a generous quantity, finely chopped, more than instinct suggests; 2 tomatoes, grated or finely chopped; 2 to 3 eggs; to taste salt, pepper and a little turmeric; to serve flatbread, to serve

Gilan

Mirza ghasemi, smoked aubergine mashed with garlic, tomato and egg into a warm savoury dip: a shallow pan of soft, deep brown mashed aubergine flecked with pale golden garlic and threads of soft scrambled egg, a thin sheen of oil pooling at the pan's edge.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time: 1 hour

Researched: No outside sources linked
Reviewed: Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked: Not yet cooked and reported

As tradition built it

Serves 4. Under 60 minutes to prepare.

Ingredients

2 whole aubergines
for frying oil, for frying
6 to 8 cloves garlic, a generous quantity, finely chopped, more than instinct suggests
2 tomatoes, grated or finely chopped
2 to 3 eggs
to taste salt, pepper and a little turmeric
to serve flatbread, to serve

Method

Char the whole aubergines directly over an open gas flame or hot coals, turning regularly, until the skin is blackened and blistered all over and the flesh inside has fully collapsed and softened, fifteen to twenty minutes.
Cool, then peel away the blackened skin and roughly chop or mash the smoked flesh.
In a pan, fry the chopped garlic in oil until golden, then add the grated tomatoes and cook down until thickened.
Fold in the smoked aubergine and cook together a further ten minutes.
Crack in the eggs directly and stir gently until just set, closer to a loose scramble than a firm curd.
Season with salt, pepper and a little turmeric, and serve warm with flatbread.

What a modern chef changes

Rung 4

Method

Cook the aubergines specifically over the Big Green Egg's live coals rather than a gas flame, for a genuinely deeper, wood-scented version of the same smoking technique rung 4 already calls for.
Blend a small portion of the smoked aubergine flesh smooth in a high-power blender before folding it back through the roughly chopped remainder, for a dish with real textural contrast, part silky, part chunky, rather than a uniform mash.
Finish the eggs sous vide-style, in a bain-marie rather than directly in the pan, stirred through gently only at the very end, for a soft, barely set curd, a technique borrowed deliberately across cuisines rather than one native to Gilan.

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