This recipe is from South Russia, state Kuban. You can cut eggplant 2 ways, one is cut in a circle like I show bellow and other horizontally, so it looks like rolls with cheese and tomato inside when done. You can grill eggplant instead of fry, but I like to fry in this recipe more. My favorite decoration for this dish is garnishing with a flower from tomato.

     2 reasons why salt eggplant before cooking. First is to draw bitter liquid out of the vegetable. Another reason is eggplants have tiny cells with water and surrounded by air pockets. When we sprinkled eggplants with salt, it draws water out of cells. The cells collapse and air pockets collapse. As a result, no oil can seep into tiny pockets during the frying process.