Middle Eastern Roasted Eggplant with Couscous

Middle Eastern Roasted Eggplant with Couscous - 15 minutes prep for this fragrant melt-in-your-mouth eggplant piled high with a fresh couscous. Divine starter or as a meal. (Vegan Tahini Drizzle recipe included as an alternative to dolloping yoghurt on!)

Stovetop Eggplant With Harissa, Chickpeas, and Cumin Yogurt

Eggplants have always been a difficult vegetable for me. They come in different shapes, sizes, colors, and stripes and are surrounded by dos and don'ts. But with enough delicious recipes under your belt, it's pretty easy to overlook the post-cooking appearance and realize that all those dos and don'ts are really more suggestions than hard-and-fast rules. This recipe, which combines small Italian eggplants cooked whole in olive oil along with harissa, chickpeas, and tomatoes, is one such preparat...

Eggplant and Tomato Sauce With Israeli Couscous

Turmeric and some other spices used in this recipe are notably Moroccan, and, while in Morocco it's typical to serve the couscous alongside the stew or sauce, I chose to stir it all together to keep in line with this quick and easy dinners column—and it turned out great. The couscous had a chance to absorb the extra sauce and flavor.

Harissa Chickpeas With Fried Eggs

This one-pot dish of chickpeas in a spicy harissa sauce with a fried egg doesn't just have to be breakfast: It's delicious for any meal of the day. It comes together in less than 15 minutes, making it the perfect weeknight meal: easy, filling, and delicious.

Couscous and Mograbiah With Oven-Dried Tomatoes From 'Ottolenghi'

Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's cafe, Ottolenghi, serves a multitude of grain-based salads. Many are rice, barley, or couscous-based. This version in their recently re-released cookbook, however, stood out for its inclusion of mograbiah, a Middle Eastern semolina pasta much like Israeli couscous or Sardinian fregola.

Moroccan Merguez Ragout with Poached Eggs

For those with a passion for runny yolks, it doesn't get much better than Shakshuka, that Middle Eastern dish of eggs poached in a spiced tomato sauce. Of course, there is one way to improve on the dish and that would be by adding chunks of Moroccan merguez à la this: Moroccan Merguez Ragout with Poached Eggs from Amanda Hesser's and Merrill Stubbs' The Food52 Cookbook.

Roasted Tomatoes and Lentils With Dukka-Crumbed Eggs From 'A Change of Appetite'

There's a reason oozing, soft-cooked eggs are arguably overused in food styling. That glistening ovum gold is like icing dripping down a cake, and anything underneath it is transformed into something richer, tastier, and more appealing. I would have been sold on this recipe from Diana Henry's new A Change of Appetite without that lusty addition, given my fondness for lentils in vinaigrette, but that broken yolk sealed the deal.

Couscous

Couscous is a useful (and delicious!) no-cook starch side that's traditionally served in Morocco/North Africa with some sort of stew.

Moroccan Egg Drop Harira (Vegetable and Legume Soup)

Derived from the Arabic word “harir,” harira translates into “silk,” which describes the consistency of the soup. This version features both lentils and chickpeas, and is finished with a drizzle of beaten egg.

Lablabi (Tunisian Chickpea Soup) From 'The Heart of the Plate'

In her new cookbook, The Heart of the Plate, Mollie Katzen shares many recipes for vegetarian soups and stews. None are as beguilingly simple as her version of Tunisian lablabi, a straightforward chickpea soup.