Fried eggplant with honey from Spain's deep south

Berenjenas con miel, a famous and historic dish from southern Spain

Friends—one of you (I’m looking at you, Marina!) told us after Monday’s post “Oh, I wish I'd known! I missed the Barcelona episode!” … well here I am, giving you a little preview to what you are about to see in the next episode! My daughters and I, we visited the south of Spain, the beautiful region of Andalucía, which is where my wife Tichi is originally from (you may remember her from last summer, when I revealed to you that my most requested recipe is actually Tichi’s!)

So today I want to share a recipe with you that we had at a tapas bar in the city of Córdoba, called Casa Pepe de la Judería. This is a place with deep history on its menu, celebrating the food of al-Andalus, the period of Spanish history when much of the country was ruled by an Islamic dynasty. You’ll find cold soups, and fried artichokes (“alcachofas” in Spanish, directly from Arabic!), and “pinchos morunos,” or Moorish skewers.

Well, at Casa Pepe, one of my favorite dishes is called Berenjenas con miel de caña. It’s fried slices of eggplant, served the very, very traditional way, with miel de caña—sugar cane honey, produced in Malaga and Granada…maybe you could think of it like the molasses of Spain. The dish is crunchy and salty and sweet, one of the perfect little bites of late summer and early fall.

When I cook the dish here in the United States, I think it’s better with true honey (like, honey from bees!), and a little lemon zest. It’s not the exact version that you’d find at Casa Pepe, but closer to the one we serve at Jaleo. And even better, eggplants are in season and probably available at your farmers market right now.

Give it a try and tell me what you think! And if you can get your hands on some true miel de caña, try it that way, too…!

And a reminder…José Andrés and Family in Spain appears on Sunday nights at 9pm ET/PT on CNN…tune in!

Berenjenas con Miel

Serves 4-6 as a side

2 pounds Japanese eggplant