Another childhood dish that I modified and turned into a delicious vegan dish—my Moroccan mother (and grandmother) makes it with chicken legs or beef. When I was little, this was the only eggplant dish I liked. I love it when the eggplants melt into the stew and resemble steak fat. Also, when cooking them in this method, the kids don’t see them. My boys still aren’t into eggplants, but they love this dish. They like to eat it with challah or pitas.

You can make this dish with zucchini instead eggplant. If you can’t do gluten or doesn’t want to eat it like a true Berber, with bread, then serve it with basmati rice.

About the recipe
This stew cooks on the stove for 20 minutes and in the oven for 20 more minutes. If you want to put it in the oven and forget about it for 1 hour, you can—at 370°F/185°C. You want to use a thick, heavy pot, preferably a cast iron skillet or Dutch Oven. It cooks everything evenly and prevents the vegetables from burning.

You can replace the onions with garlic (about 4 cloves).

How to Choose a Good Eggplant

My mother taught me how to choose the right eggplant; it must be dark, shiny, and lightweight. If it’s heavy, it has too many seeds and will be bitter. The new varieties of eggplants aren’t as bitter as they used to be, yet I still won’t buy the eggplant if it’s heavy-weight.

When I googled in Hebrew why shiny and light eggplants taste better, I bumped into a question someone else posted on Facebook: “How do you choose a seedless eggplant? Is there a special type, or is it a matter of seasons?”

Better question than mine. Most of the answers were the same as my mother’s—light and shiny. Some people claimed that it depends if the eggplant is male or female. A male eggplant has fewer seeds than a female, therefore they’re lighter. More seeds, less meat. Makes sense.

How do you know which is which? Boy eggplants have a round dimple on the bottom, while girl eggplants have a dash-like dimple. Another person commented “In the season, which is winter, eggplants have fewer seeds.”

I didn’t care enough to research the sexes theory, but if you feel like investigating the subject, go for it. Just keep us posted by commenting below. However, next time I buy eggplants, I’ll test the male-female theory—see which has more seeds. That kind of research I don’t mind—just not spending more time in front of my computer screen.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I love eggplants. They’re one of my favorite vegetables. No wonder I have so many eggplant recipes here:
Lentils cooked with eggplant
Eggplant, Shallot and Scallion Stew
Smoky Butternut Squash, Eggplant & Bell Pepper Salad
Easy Rice Eggplant Pilaf
Smoky Eggplant Dip