Para la cena, quiero hacer calabacín a la plancha y una berenjena al horno.

Para la cena means for dinner and is very natural when talking about what you plan to make or eat for that meal.

• Para la cena = for dinner
• En la cena = at dinner / during dinner

So here, Para la cena, quiero hacer... means For dinner, I want to make..., which fits the idea perfectly.

Yes. In Spanish, hacer is often used for preparing food, especially in everyday speech.

So:

• quiero hacer calabacín... = I want to make/cook zucchini...

This is very common. Depending on the context, hacer can mean:

• to make
• to prepare
• sometimes effectively to cook

You could also hear other verbs like preparar or cocinar, but hacer sounds very natural here.

This is a very common thing learners notice.

In Spanish, when talking about food ingredients in a general or uncountable way, the article is often omitted:

• hacer calabacín a la plancha
  = to make grilled zucchini / to cook some zucchini on a griddle

Here, calabacín is being treated more like an ingredient or dish, not necessarily as one whole zucchini.

But una berenjena clearly means one eggplant/aubergine, so it uses the indefinite article:

• una berenjena al horno = an eggplant baked in the oven

So the contrast is:

• calabacín = ingredient/dish in a general sense
• una berenjena = one whole item

Yes, you could, but it changes the nuance slightly.

• calabacín a la plancha sounds more like grilled zucchini as a dish or ingredient.
• un calabacín a la plancha sounds more like one grilled zucchini.

If you are thinking of the vegetable as a whole item, un calabacín is possible. If you are just naming the food you want to prepare, leaving out the article is very natural.

A la plancha means cooked on a hot flat surface, like a griddle or grill plate, usually with little oil.

It is often translated as:

• grilled
• griddle-cooked
• sometimes pan-grilled

In Spain, a la plancha is a very common way to talk about simply cooked food, especially vegetables, fish, or meat.

Examples:

• pollo a la plancha = grilled chicken
• pescado a la plancha = grilled fish

Because a + el contracts to al in Spanish.

So:

• a el horno → al horno

This contraction is mandatory.

So:

• una berenjena al horno = an eggplant baked in the oven

A similar contraction happens with de + el = del.

Literally, yes, it comes from to the oven, but in cooking Spanish it means oven-baked / baked in the oven.

So:

• berenjena al horno = baked eggplant / eggplant cooked in the oven

This is a very common cooking expression. It works more like a recipe style than a literal movement phrase.

Because the nouns have different grammatical genders:

• la plancha is feminine
• el horno is masculine

That affects the article:

• a la plancha
• al horno = a + el horno

This is just normal gender agreement in Spanish.

Spanish often avoids repeating words when the meaning is clear.

So:

• quiero hacer calabacín a la plancha y una berenjena al horno

means:

• I want to make grilled zucchini and a baked eggplant

You do not need to repeat hacer before the second food item, because it is understood.

A more expanded version would be:

• quiero hacer calabacín a la plancha y hacer una berenjena al horno

But that sounds more repetitive and less natural.

Yes. Berenjena is the Spanish word for that vegetable.

In English:

• eggplant is standard in American English
• aubergine is standard in British English

Since this is Spanish from Spain, it is especially useful to know that berenjena corresponds to what British English often calls aubergine.

Yes.

In English:

• American English: zucchini
• British English: courgette

In Spanish (Spain), calabacín is the normal word for both.

Yes, both are correct.

• Para la cena, quiero hacer...
• Quiero hacer... para la cena.

The first version brings for dinner to the front, so it sets the context first. It can sound a bit more like: As for dinner... or For dinner, I want to make...

The second version is also very natural and perhaps slightly more neutral in everyday speech.

The accent mark matters in calabacín because it shows where the stress goes:

• ca-la-ba-CÍN

Without that written accent, the stress would be wrong.

For quiero, there is no written accent, and the stress naturally falls on the first syllable:

• QUIE-ro

So the important stress in this sentence is especially:

• QUIE-ro
• ca-la-ba-CÍN
• be-ren-JE-na
• HOR-no

Yes, it sounds natural in Spain.

It has several very common Spain-style features:

• calabacín for zucchini/courgette
• a la plancha as a very common cooking expression
• al horno as a standard way to describe baked food

A Spanish speaker from Spain would understand it immediately and find it perfectly normal.