Zaalouk

Hello again, some new input for cooking - finally. I have discovered a new podcast which is about cooking - like the format because it is very entertaining, with good tips and various stuff, paleo, vegan, ketogenic - hadn't even heard this last one before.
So I got inspired by the recipe for Zaalouk, a Moroccon recipe. As I heard in the podcast, these are the ingredients: Garlic, shallots, olive oil, eggplant, diced tomatoes - very ripe or canned -, salt,
turmeric, cumin, paprika, black pepper, cilantro and parsley.
More or less it went like this:
make your base with olive oil, minced garlic and diced shallots, add diced eggplant and let it simmer with a medium low temperature. - It takes some patience because the eggplant needs time to take up the oil and get cooked, maybe even 30 minutes, add the rest and let it simmer for another 10 minutes. With a fork, mash the whole mixture up, so there will still be texture but not large pieces of eggplant
Since I still have frozen eggplant here which I brought from Italy, I took up the idea at once.
Here is what I did:
1 onion
1 cup of wild garlic
olive oil
1 eggplant
1 can of italian cherry tomatoes
turmeric
cumin
chili powder
cilantro
parsley

Zaalouk with home made spelt flour bread and white and red rice with avocado

I was a bit disappointed because it somehow seemed to bland for me, I would have thought that it is more interesting - and I am not talking about spiciness from the chili. Maybe it was the absence of garlic and the wild garlic wasn't strong enough in taste or just not enough, who knows.
So the next day, I cooked it some more, with a little water added, lots more of turmeric and cinnamon. I mashed it some more with a food processor and added a generous sprinkle of lemon.
Next time I would even add more of these spices, maybe roast the cumin in a pan first. However, it is a great vegan  and gluten-free dish to eat with some rice or couscous or use it as a spread on some toasted bread.
For the whole procedure, why don't you listen to this podcast. It is called harvest eating and really worth listening to.

Bottrop Salad

This is a summer salad - more than the traditional Swabian salad made with broth which I will teach you in the future. Actually I stole the idea from a place which isn't really known for creative cuisine. Some years ago we went to pick up our Giant Schnauzer Sissi - Susi Sorglos vom Kellergeist - from her breeder. Since they were breeding Continental Bull Dogs in the meantime, she wanted to give away this great dog and we met at a dog training place in Bottrop where they were for an exhibition that day. The Boxer dog camp was a small club and for the exhibition the members made a barbecue and homemade salads. I really liked the combination of spring onions, radishes, potatoes and sour cream. In honor of the place where I tasted it for the first time, I called it Bottrop salad.
Very easy: Cook potatoes - important to take the small spring potatoes with a quality of not becoming too starchy when cooked. Add the cut spring onions, radishes and sea salt. Wait for at least 10 minutes to add the sour cream. - That's it, great component of a spring or summer barbecue.