Since moving to California, I developed a strong passion for vegetables. Which if you know me you’d be a bit puzzled about. I am a carnivore, and love the complexity of meats and the delicate and sophisticated tastes of all sorts of fish and seafood.Well, I definitely still love these, but it was so much fun do discover what could be done with the variety of vegetables growing in Cali.

Sabih is a dish originating from Iraq, and is usually eaten in the morning or at lunch, in most cases as a pita sandwich. When I think of a good Sabih I think about a balance between sweet tomatoes and spicy jalapeno, about the beautiful caramels that come out of roasting eggplants in high temperature, and about creamy Tahini sauce. Yum.

My inspiration to this version of Sabih came from the amazing dry farm tomatoes that grow up in California, they are small, kinda in between a normal sized tomato and a cherry tomato, and they pack the taste of a bunch of tomatoes in that tiny little volume. Amazing. You just don’t understand this until you taste it. If there was tomato perfume, it would smell like this…

So the first secret to this dish is dry farm tomatoes that you could get in wholefoods in the summer and if you live in the bay area, YEAR ROUND in Berkeley Bowl, I probably shouldn’t be telling you about this, supply is probably limited… In any case discovering these amazing little gems (which are great to eat as they are with a bit of Atlantic salt and a drizzle of olive oil) made me want to match them with a couple of simple ingredients that would not over power them, but that would together create a party of tastes.

The second secret is meyer lemons, along the same theme, their perfumed smell, make almost every dish with them, a celebration. I used meyer lemon juice and skin in the tahini sauce and it was an awesome completion to wrap up the sweetness of the tomatoes and the eggplant, and the spiciness of the jalapeno into perfection.

The third secret, is the beautiful match between the taste of eggplant roasted under open fire, and hard boiled eggs. Tough to explain why, but it’s a natural fit that just works amazingly well.

With these three little secrets the road to a winning veggie appetizer (could easily serve as a great main course too) is short, try it, you’ll love it:

Ingredients (4 appetizers):

Tahini sauce

4 ounce raw tahini (you can get it in wholefoods or in middle-eastern food shops, the ones in the latter are usually better, the Tarazi brand which is pretty popular in California will do the job)

3 meyer lemons

1 garlic clove

~4 ounce ice water

1/2 flat teaspoon Atlantic salt

The rest

12 dry farm tomatoes (or 4 “on the vine” tomatoes)

2 large eggplants (choose them light and stiff, this means less seeds and freshness respectively)

2 green jalapenos

4 eggs

Preparation

Wash and dry the eggplants, make some holes in them using a fork and put in a pan very close (like an inch) to the broiler, they need to really feel the heat. Keep them on one side for 15 minutes then on the other side for another 15 minutes. Then take them out and let them chill, the dish is supposed to be served in room temperature so it’s better to let them rest for 15 minutes while you prepare the rest.

Chop the jalapeno, chop the tomatoes, boil the eggs in salt water for 10 minutes then peel and slice the eggs.

Making the tahini sauce – put the raw tahini in a food processor with the steel blade in, add the garlic clove and juice from 2 meyer lemons, wash and slice the third meyer lemon (take out the seeds) and put into the food processor with 1/3 of the water. Add the salt and turn on the food processor for 10 seconds, then add some water and run the food processor for another 10 seconds; repeat till it reaches the desired texture. The sauce should be thick but not “cementy” (like hummus) you could get an idea for the needed texture in the pic above.

Putting the dish together – cut each of the roasted eggplants in half, place them on 4 plates, add a pinch of Atlantic salt on the eggplant, then throw around the eggs, tomatoes, jalapenos, and the tahini sauce on top of all.

Serve and indulge.

Interesting twist is to serve all the ingredients separately to the table and let people DYOS (Do Your Own Sabih)