Eggplant Tartine with Tomtoes, Olives and Cucumber # Make Up of French Fridays with Dorie

This week was Make Up week at French Fridays with Dorie. Since I have only recently joined the club I had a whole lot of recipes  to choose from. To start off with, I had the Duck Breast with fresh Peaches to try,  which I had skipped last week. but then my husband was absolutely unwilling to try duck. he had tried duck in Paris and had not liked it much. unwilling to take the trouble just for me felt expensive. so i skipped the idea altogether and flipped through the book for something easy and simple. one of the first things that came up was this eggplant tartine. we like baked eggplants and the Eggplant tartine with cherry tomatoes sounded like a perfect appetizer.

I am not sure what  I was expecting from this, but one bite into the tartine and it felt like I was taking a bite of "Deconstructed Baigan Bharta." though this tartine looks way too pretty to be compared with that Indian cousin of it, with all the tartness from the tomatoes, olive, capers and the vinaigrette, it tasted just as good as baingan bharta or should i say "my mother's baingan bharta." 

for those who do not know what "Baingan Bharta" is, it is a popular Indian dish cooked with roasted eggplants as the star ingredient and almost every Indian household has its own version of the "bharta." my mother's version with copious amounts of onion, garlic, tomatoes and coriander is gorgeously tart and extremely delicious and is one of my favorite vegetarian dishes. so yes, taste-wise i really liked this tartine. I also loved how easy it was to put together. however i thought it was a little cumbersome to handle. between me and my husband, we tackled it with our fingers but I am not sure if this is a tartine I'll like serving to my guests.    

Being a member of french fridays with Dorie, i cannot publish the original recipe in the blog. You can however this recipe here. For many more delicious recipes such as this one order your copies of Around the French Table from Amazon or from The Book Depository and join us as we cook our way through the book.