Roasted Eggplants with Pomegranate and Yogurt Sauce

Not the best photo, but trust me these are delicious. This is only slightly adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's book  Plenty. You can really put any spice you want in the yogurt mixture. I used frozen pomegranate seeds from Costco since these are out of season right now and difficult to find.

2 large eggplants, sliced horizontally
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
coarse salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400º. I peeled two skinny strips down the length of the eggplant (skin side) with a sharp paring knife to make the finished product easier to cut and eat, but you don't have to do that. Brush the tops with the olive oil until all the oil is absorbed by the eggplants. Make 3 or 4 parallel incisions in the flesh of the eggplant without cutting through to the skin. Sprinkle with kosher or maldon salt and bake for about 40-45 minutes until nicely browned. Let them cool on the pan.

Yogurt Sauce:
1/2 cup buttermilk, shaken not stirred
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, pressed
za'atar and cumin to taste
pinch of salt
squeeze of lemon (optional)
Mix all ingredients together. Spoon sauce over eggplants and throw some pomegranate seeds over the sauce. Drizzle with a bit of EVOO. Serve at room temperature (the leftovers were good cold as well).
In the cookbook, he has you throw some chopped lemon thyme over the whole thing but I didn't have it so I went without.