Politiko Imam Bayildi (Ιμάμ Μπαϊλντί)

Imam Bayildi is Politiki, from the Greek kitchen of Constantinople: split eggplants filled with onions, garlic, and tomato, cooked in olive oil until they nearly sigh apart. It belongs to the ladera, the oil-cooked dishes that fed fasting days and summer tables without apology. No meat is missing here. The eggplant is the body of the dish, and the oil is its sauce.

The onions must be cooked before they go inside. That's the whole truth of it. If you tuck them in raw, they steam in the eggplant and stay sharp. Cook them slowly in olive oil first, until they soften and sweeten, and the filling becomes silkier than its simple ingredients have any right to be.

Use ripe summer tomatoes if the calendar gives them to you. If not, good canned tomato is the honest choice. Serve the dish warm-room temperature with bread, never straight from the oven. In my Thessaloniki kitchen this is how the Politiki recipes announce themselves: cinnamon kept quiet, oil used generously, and patience doing most of the work.