This recipe produced one of the most visually unappealing dishes I have ever created: tan-brown chunks of eggplant dolloped with tan-yellow saffron mayonnaise.

The salad tasted okay -- as do most things involving garlic and mayonnaise, in my opinion. If I were to make it again, I'd probably grill slices of eggplant and keep the skin on rather than, as Bittman suggests, splitting the eggplant lengthwise, cooking them and then peeling and chopping them.

Given that there are so many other tasty way to cook eggplant, though, I don't think I'll bother with this recipe again.