This dish is definitely one of my favourite summer dinner. Although is not summer yet and the temperatures in England are everything apart from summery, I have been craving lighter and fresher dishes lately and this always managed to hit the spot. The marinade for the aubergines is just so delicious even by itself, it’s sweet but salty and it has a lovely tangy notes from the lemon. The perfect accompaniment is a herby quinoa tabbouleh with lots of parsley, mint, lemon and chilli. All these flavours juts work wonderfully together creating a light but very filling dish which will bring you sunshine no matter where you are! 😉

You can eat the dish as it is or if you want to make it even more delicious drizzle it with this super creamy tahini dressing which works perfectly with all these middle eastern inspired flavours. I have been actually obsessed with this dressing recently, it works well with any kind of salad, stir fries or even roasted veggies.

Ingredients:

1 large aubergine or 2/ 3 baby aubergines

2 cups pf cooked quinoa

1 bunch of fresh parsley ( I used the flat leaf one)

1 bunch of fresh mint

The juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon of date syrup

2 teaspoon of brown rice  miso paste

Salt and pepper to taste

For topping:

Fresh pomegranate seeds

Sesame seeds

Fresh chopped red chilli

Pine nuts

For the dressing:

1 tablespoon of tahini

The juice of ½ lemon

The juice of ½ orange

1 teaspoon of tamari

A splash of water if needed to adjust the consistency

Method:

Start by preheating the oven at 180 degrees Celsius.

If you are using a large aubergine slice it in round disks, if you are using baby aubergines you can slice them lengthways. Prepare the marinade: in a bowl put the miso paste and date syrup and mix together adding a splash of lemon juice. Using a kitchen brush covered the sliced aubergine with the marinade. Place them in a baking tray and add a tiny bit of water at the bottom of the tray. That will prevent the aubergine from drying out too much and will keep them moist.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. While the aubergines are cooking make the quinoa tabbouleh: chopped the fresh herbs very finely, if you are not a good chopper like me place them in a food processor and blitz them coarsely. To the fresh herbs add the cooked quinoa and the juice of 1 lemon. Adjust with salt and pepper.

Make the dressing: place the tahini, orange juice, lemon juice and tamari into a bowl and whisk well. Add gradually a bit of water if you feel the consistency of the dressing is too thick. It should be creamy but still quite runny.

Take the aubergine out of the oven, at this point they should be quite soft and squishy. Place them on a plate on top of your quinoa tabbouleh. Top with pomegranate seeds, fresh chopped chilli, sesame and pine nuts  and drizzle the dressing on top .