Cretan Melitzanes Tiganites (Μελιτζάνες Τηγανητές)

Cretan melitzanes tiganites are summer eggplant at its plainest and best: thin rounds, salted, dusted with flour, fried gold, and sent to the table with lemon. You see them from Crete across the islands, beside a plate of tomatoes, a little feta, and bread ready for the oil.

The method is not the frying. It is the salting and drying before the pan. Eggplant holds water like a sponge, and if you skip that first rest, the slices take too long to color and drink more oil than they should. Salt them, let them weep, dry them well, and the flour clings in a light coat instead of turning pasty.

This is budget food, fasting food when served without cheese beside it, and outdoor food because it wants to be eaten hot, by hand if nobody is pretending. I don't invent it. I find it, I test it, I write it down. Here the numbers only keep you from guessing at the pan.