By the time I stood in Barbare Chabashvili’s rustic kitchen—sunlight splashing off plaster walls, the clang of her metal mortar and pestle creating a bell song soundtrack—I knew too well Georgians’ love of garlic. Still, when she reached for 15 (!!) cloves, popping them into the mortar a few at a time as she bashed, I feared our dinner had just become pungently inedible.

I needn’t have worried. I’d come to her home in Tsnori, a tiny village in Georgia’s (the country, not the state) Alazani Valley to learn badrijani nigvzit, a ubiquitous and oft reinterpreted eggplant dish that dresses slabs of fried eggplant with a boldly seasoned dressing of crushed walnuts, herbs, chili, spices and—of course—ample garlic.

Sometimes the eggplant slabs are simply mounded over the sauce. Sometimes they are layered like lasagna. Sometimes they are rolled around it like cannoli. Chabashvili simply created packets, folding the eggplant over a spoonful of the dressing, which had the consistency of a thick hummus.

When I tasted it, it was a shock to the senses. Not because of the garlic—which is far milder than our own (so our version uses less)—but because of the delicious riot of flavors and how well they played together. The creamy walnuts and rich eggplant were the perfect contrast to the sharp notes of chili and paprika, all of it pulled together with brightly tangy pomegranate seeds and the fresh herbal notes of parsley and cilantro.

The result was one of the best—and most flavorful—eggplant dishes I’ve ever eaten. Imagine a whacky-­delicious marriage of hummus, baba ghanoush and eggplant Parmesan. Well worth facing my fear of eating 15 cloves of garlic.