Stuffed aubergine with spiced meat & tahini sauce

A Middle Eastern flavoured dinner inspired by a Turkish classic.

Moving to Turkey gave me a new level of respect for classical cooking. The local cuisines in these region have an incredibly rich and varied food culture, with access to an incredible diversity of ingredients for centuries. They’ve taken full advantage of this, leaving us with a huge variety of traditional dishes, many of them fine tuned over many, many generations.

I’m all for being creative and trying out new things, but after nearly ten years in Turkey, I’ve come to the conclusion that very few “modernised” versions of classics are actually improvements. Especially if they come from someone with only a recent or tangential knowledge of the dish or cuisine. It’s usually safer (and tastier) to stick to the simpler classic ways.

That said, what would life be without a little variation?