Aubergine with Yoghurt-Buttermilk sauce

Now, as I was in London and visited one of the Restaurants from Ottolenghi I naturally also bought one of his books. Browsing through the cookbook I was planning to try some of the recipes.. My only problem is when to do all those things and also who should eat all those things... :) and wasn´nt there some other recipes that I wanted to try some day...? On the market I found some pretty, tempting aubergines and in Ottolenghis book a interesting recipe to prepare them. He roast the aubergines in the oven and top them with a youghurt-buttermilk sauce. Really simple but very tasty.. together with some Pita bread yumm.

You need (serves 2 persons as a starter):

1 medium sized aubergine

40 ml + 1 Tbsp. olive oil 

1 Tsp. thyme leaves + some fresh sprigs

70 ml buttermilk

60 g greek yoghurt
1 small garlic clove, crushed

salt and pepper to season

To prepare:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C

2. Cut the Aubergines in halves (also throught the stalk) and cut in a diamond shaped way the cut-side of each aubergine

3. Put the Aubergines cut-side up on a oven tray armed with parchement paper.

4. Drizzle the olive oil on the olive oil until all the oil has been absorbed by the flesh
5. Season with salt, pepper and thyme leaves

6. Put in the oven for about 40 minutes

7. Meanwhile the Aubergines roast in the oven prepare the sauce by whisking together in a bowl buttermilk, greek yoghurt, the crushed garlic clove and season with salt, pepper and 1 Tbsp. olive oil.

8. When the flesh of the Aubergines is soft, remove from the oven and let cool down.

 9. Place the Aubergines on a plate, top the flesh with plenty of the yoghurt-buttermilk sauce and decorate with some fresh thyme sprigs.

Play some songs from Kate Yanai (Summer feeling / Bacardi song), savour the Aubergines and you feel like beeing somewhere on a Beach, looking the sunset....