JaanYar
Chapter 1 of 14

Eggplant

The Short Version

A heap of whole glossy purple eggplants with green calyxes piled together at a market stall
Whole eggplants before any cooking — firm, glossy skin and a green calyx are the buying cues.

Bademjan is a vegetable first — a foundation of Persian cooking.

Read the whole guide on one page →

Roasted or grilled it stays light. Fried, it drinks oil.

Persian cooking always pairs it with something cool and sour.

Persians love bademjan so much that it's called the 'potato of Iran.' Whether you meet it in kashk-e bademjan, mirza ghasemi or khoresh bademjan, eggplant soaks up flavour like a sponge and brings a long list of antioxidants with it.

Known to botanists as Solanum melongena.