Eggplant/Aubergine Upside Down

A dish for elegant occasions. The rice comes out as a mold enclosed in juicy slices of eggplant. Like the rest of the traditional eggplant dishes, it is a relic of medieval times. In al-Warraq’s tenth-century cookbook, maghmouma ‘covered’ is described in a poem by the ninth-century Abbasid Prince Ibn al-Mahdi. The dish is constructed of a layer of meat spread on top of a bottom layer of chopped tallow. On top of this is spread a layer of sliced sweet onion, a layer of rice, a layer o