What do you do with eggplant?

I have found precious few uses for this vegetable. At first it used to freak me out, as I thought it looked like some kind of weird alien internal organ. I've since gotten over that, and I have been enticed to buy eggplant on many occasions - especially those gorgeous, purple-black ones at the farmer's market. But I just don't know what to do with them.

I love baba ghanoush but I'm rarely ambitious enough to make it for myself. I've tried using eggplant in ratatouille, but I must have been doing something wrong as it ended up all mushy and soggy - not appealing at all.

I don't think it's the type of veggie that responds well to just a simple roasting in the oven with olive oil, but I could be wrong.

So, I entreat all of you: bring me eggplant enlightenment! Instruct me how to best prepare and enjoy this under-appreciated (for me) veggie.

I love them, but I'd not pretend that they are a vegetable that shows up at it's best when cooked very simply. Some of my favourite aubergine dishes are
Melanzane all parmigiano
Ratatouille
Imam Bayeldi
Armenian Simpoog moussaka (better than the Greek style IMO)
Armenian aubergine caviar and the very similar Moroccan Zaalouk

You'll find recipes for all (I think) of these recipes on my website. http://pagesperso-orange.fr/souvigne/recipes/

However as you'll see when you read them, none of them are simple. Also, it has to be said that the texture of properly cooked Aubergines is quite soft and it's perfectly possible that you can't take that. A shame, but by the same token its a shame that I can't take yoghurt.

[Robin Garr]

Baba ganoush! Just like hummus, but made with roasted (or better yet, fire-roasted and wood-smoked) eggplant in place of chickpeas.

Here's an article on it that I wrote some time back:

http://www.wineloverspage.com/wineadvis ... 0905.phtml

Thanks for the links! And for confirming that to properly enjoy eggplant, I can't be lazy about it.

Slice it about half an inch thick and put a slice of tomato on each slice. Top with a mix of bread crumbs, minced onion, minced garlic, grated Parmesan, and herbs. (I like chopped fresh oregano, but thyme or parsley or whatever you like will work.) Bake at 375 until it's soft - 20 to 30 minutes.
You can grill a Japanese eggplant - the skinny ones that look like a purple zucchini - with olive oil. Put whole ones around the cool parts of the grill and turn often till they're soft. Keep the skin shiny with olive oil. It'll take about twice as long as a steak needs. In Japan, they're served with the mild tempura dipping sauce. Also good with just salt and pepper.

John

I grill it or roast it, and when softened I slice it open (remove seeds if there are too many) and add butter or olive oil and garlic.
If I get ambitious, I add to the above (after grilling or roasting) tahini and lemon or orange juice.
I sometimes just slice it and put the slices on a hot grill brushed with a little olive oil.
If I get ambitious, I sometimes take the above slices (after grilling) layer them in a baking dish with mozzarella and Rao Marinara sauce, top the whole thing with grated Parmesan and breadcrumbs and bake for 20 minutes in a hot oven.

One of my favorite ways to prepare eggplant is in a recipe I found on About.com a few years ago for Spicy Szechuan Eggplant. I've made it with and without the pork. I prefer the richness of the pork, but it's good both ways.

One of my favorite ways to prepare eggplant is in a recipe I found on About.com a few years ago for Spicy Szechuan Eggplant. I've made it with and without the pork. I prefer the richness of the pork, but it's good both ways.

Aha!! That reminds me of another dish that I made once recently. Fish fragrant aubergine - the recipe's pretty similar to the one you sent up, I think, though as I've tried Sunflower's I can promise you it's wonderful. Actually all her recipes are brilliant.

http://sunflower-recipes.blogspot.com/2008/08/fish-fragrant-aubergine.html

I'm with you regarding eggplant...so here is a favorite of mine

Italian Eggplant
1 medium eggplant, pared and sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup fine dry, bread crumbs
1/4 tsp salt
About 8 ounces of your home made marinara sauce or your favorite commercial type
1 tablespoon crushed oregano leaves
1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
Dip eggplant in butter, then in mixture of bread crumbs and salt. Place on greased baking sheet. Spoon sauce atop each slice; sprinkle with oregano and cheese. Bake in hot oven, 450°, 10 to 12 minutes or until done
serves 4 to 5
I cover my baking pan with non-stick foil wrap, and spray with a light coating of canola oil or olive oil spray. I've also used jack cheese for this, with fresh oregano.

Nor should we forget two ultimately simple Greek-Turkish-Middle Eastern favorites:

1. Take a whole eggplant, pierce the skin five-six times with tines of a fork, place it under a hot grill in the oven or over hot charcoals and let cook, turning once until the skin is nearly charred. Slit the eggplant lengthwise, scoop out excess seeds with a spoon and then serve hot spooned over generously with tchina or cold spooned over with thick goat's or sheep's cheese yoghurt.

2. Slice the eggplant crosswise with the skin intact. Heat a generous quantity of olive oil in a heavy skillet, in that saute slices of garlic or whole garlic cloves until they just begin to take on color, add the eggplant slices in a single layer, turning once or twice until nicely browned but not yet charred. Serve on its own, with tchina, with yoghurt or with lemon halves.

Best
Rogov

[Jenise]

Thanks for the links! And for confirming that to properly enjoy eggplant, I can't be lazy about it.

My absolute favorite way to enjoy eggplant came about over the last year when under construction here at Chez J, I was limited to simple preps involving a barbecue and a microwave. I cut one up into chunks, put them in a foil boat, and added liberal doses of olive oil, salt and white wine. Onto the barbecue that went for about 30 minutes. Ooh la la. Garlic and fresh herbs now go in the boat too sometimes, but honestly the simplicity of white wine and salt is a great basic seasoning.

Another nice way to prep eggplant is to spread 3/4" slices with a bit of mayonnaise, then press into a plate of panko seasoned with just a bit of salt and herbs d'provence. Bake on an oiled cookie sheet in a hot oven until browned, turning once. One or the other is on our menu for tonight--it's Meatless Monday, and I have a beautiful eggplant!

Melissa,
I am also not fond of the consistency of traditional ratatouille, though as I've grown older I've grown more tolerant. However, in Omex in the French Pyrenees I had a marvelous variant: grilled ratatouille, which is how I do it at home nowadays. Cube the eggplant in 1" cubes, make 1" slices of several zucchini and "cube" a few onions. Make an herbed vinaigrette marinade; marinate the cut veggies overnight. Shortly before cooking, remove the veggies from the marinade and skewer them, along with cherry tomatoes and a few unpeeled cloves of garlic. Grill the skwered vegetables, basting 1-2 times with the marinade. When cooked, place the veggies in a bowl, dress with the marinade and add lots of cut up basil leaves. Toss well and serve with grilled meats, etc.

Mark Lipton

mmm, lots of good suggestions here! Jenise and Karen I like the sounds of those crusted eggplant slices. Rogov, I am intrigued by your suggestions as they sound decidedly foreign to my palate. And grilling it sounds like something I'd also definitely enjoy, as most things taste pretty darn good with grill marks.

Surprised Jenise does not wrap in seaweed first!

[Jenise]

Grilled eggplant is definitely fantastic, Melissa. Consider grilling thin rounds of eggplant, pressing to get the moisture out, then stuffing with a bit of blue cheese. Fold in half to form little half moon shapes, then send them into a hot oven briefly to melt the cheese and serve atop room-temperature sliced beefsteak tomatoes with a vinaigrette and some finely chopped chives--makes a great summer salad, and it's very attractive when plattered in a larger quantity for a group meal.

Consider grilling thin rounds of eggplant, pressing to get the moisture out...

I think therein lies the crux of this veggie, and why I haven't really enjoyed it much yet - it's got so much water content that it seems to get mushy and then I just don't find it appealing.

[Jenise]

Consider grilling thin rounds of eggplant, pressing to get the moisture out...

I think therein lies the crux of this veggie, and why I haven't really enjoyed it much yet - it's got so much water content that it seems to get mushy and then I just don't find it appealing.

Well, there's that, and then there's the fact that it remains, in effect, a sponge. It can soak up oil like a diaper, so maximum dessication is an important step every time.

Eggplant is extremely versatile. Among my favorites:

Sichuan "fish-flavored" (stir-fried with garlic, chile, vinegar, and other spices).
Ratatouille.
Thai red or green curry (especially using round white eggplant [the variety that really looks like an egg plant] or Thai pea eggplant).
Moussaka.
Italian eggplant Parmesan.
South Indian sambar.
Parsi dhansak.
Baingan pakora (eggplant slices breaded in chickpea flour and deep-fried)

Or slice it crosswise in about 1/2-inch thick slices, brush each side with a bit of olive oil, and then grill it. Maybe with a bit of herbs de Provence (thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano, lavender in any combination)sprinkled on.

-Paul W.

Well, there's that, and then there's the fact that it remains, in effect, a sponge. It can soak up oil like a diaper, so maximum dessication is an important step every time.

I heard what I was told was an old Arabian joke that goes like this:

A young man met a young woman who served him the most delicious fried eggplant he'd ever tasted, and for this first and foremost he married her. For her dowry he was given fifty large urns of olive oil. On their wedding night she cooked him delicious fried eggplant. The next day, he asked her to fix more fried eggplant. Her face fell, and she said that would be impossible. When he asked why, she responded that they were out of olive oil.

Eggplant can indeed soak up oil like nobody's business. A lot of recipes call for salting the sliced pieces of eggplant, letting them sit for half an hour, then squeezing the moisture out of them before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.

-Paul W.

Paul, Hi...

Indeed when being fried eggplant slices absorb a great deal of olive oil. The good news is that if allowed to continue to fry until lightly browned on both sides the vast majority of oil seeps out again, that leaving the slices "greaseless" and leaving plenty of oil for frying the next batch of slices.

One rule firmly followed by those in the Middle-East and other areas in which eggplant (or, for those of the Brits and French among us - aubergine) is a staple in the dining is to never, never fry with more than one layer of slices in the skillet. As to pre-salting and draining, popular in Turkey and Lebanon, unpopular in Greece and Syria. A matter, I suspect, of different strokes for different folks.

As to olive oil, also a staple throughout the Mediterranean basin, very few will use extra virgin olive oil for frying eggplant. Simple virgin or even first press oil does nicely.

Best
Rogov

There is eggplant (known here as aubergine) and eggplant......

Ones we get here come mostly from Holland where they grow in greenhouses probably hydroponically where its in the interest of everyone except the consumer they grow fast and large and so are swollen with water and taste of nothing much.

But....

Salt them then squeeze them to extract moisture and fry till brown* and they have the most exquisite flavour....

Recently I have found a supermarket selling small ones (nor much larger than an egg) from Ghana which have hard flesh (rather than the puffy swollen Dutch ones) and they don't have excess water to squeeze out and they don't absorb much oil when fried. And they have a good flavour.

For ratatouille, which we have frequetly, I fry all the ingredients separately before stewing in tomatoes.


*they absorb so much oil when frying that I brush slices with oil using a pastry brush and put on a baking tray under a hot grill (=broil)

[quote="Paul Winalski"
I heard what I was told was an old Arabian joke that goes like this:[/quote]
That's the origin of the name of one of the dishes I recommended, Imam Bayeldi "The imam fainted" When the Imam (who have a reputation for being "careful" with money (or in another version of the story - greedy) discovered how much of his dowry had been used he passed out on the Ottoman or - alternatively, he ate so much that he passed out. Either way, the dish is delicious.

Daniel - Salting. I'd always heard that one salted to remove a bitter taste that aubergines can have. However, recent strains don't have this anymore. But salting is still IMO worth carrying out before frying. I conducted a little experiment on this. I salted, rinsed and dried one half of a batch of aubergines and then weighed how much oil they had absorbed when fried. I fried the other half in the same amount of oil at the same temperature in the same pan over the same heat without prior salting and they absorbed about twice as much oil. So salting is useful if you want to reduce oil takeup. FYI, when cooked "fully" they restitute about 1/4 of the oil they had absorbed.

I'm with you regarding eggplant...so here is a favorite of mine

Italian Eggplant
1 medium eggplant, pared and sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup fine dry, bread crumbs
1/4 tsp salt
About 8 ounces of your home made marinara sauce or your favorite commercial type
1 tablespoon crushed oregano leaves
1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
Dip eggplant in butter, then in mixture of bread crumbs and salt. Place on greased baking sheet. Spoon sauce atop each slice; sprinkle with oregano and cheese. Bake in hot oven, 450°, 10 to 12 minutes or until done
serves 4 to 5
I cover my baking pan with non-stick foil wrap, and spray with a light coating of canola oil or olive oil spray. I've also used jack cheese for this, with fresh oregano.

Karen, I do eggplant somewhat like yours. Here is what I do. I cut the slices about 1/8th inch thick, salt the slices and allow them to sit for a couple hours to give off some liquid. The I run the slices thru an egg/milk bath, then dredge them in a S&P flavored flour.Then I put the slices in a skillet with HOT olive oil. when all slices are fried, I put put slices in a pyrex baking dish, first Eggplant, then marinara, then shredded mozz, then a generous sprinkling of fresh grated parm, alternate layers until the dish is full finishing with cheese. Bake until the cheese is bubbly and stand back while I dig in!