Eggplant/Aubergine

[andiesenji]

I love eggplant in just about every way it can be prepared.

That being said, I do know many folks can't stand it.

This Saveur article and the side links might help.

Last year I had a surfeit of eggplants of all shapes, sizes and colors and was directed by a friend to this site: Ashbury's Aubergines

Where there are hundreds of recipes utilizing eggplant.

Select a letter and look at the list. I selected this page because I have tried the marinated eggplants, pickled eggplant and the Mince and Eggplant casserole on just this one page.

Oh! Also tried the Mock Oyster Casserole - used the small white eggplants just cut in half - it was delicious. I didn't peel them because with this variety the skin is very tender and not at all bitter.

Edited July 22, 2011 by andiesenji (log)

[HungryC]

I bought several pounds of green eggplants last week...first up was a simple pasta:

--peel and cut eggplant into small cubes, then saute over high heat with garlic until browned/soft, then add a few T chopped tomato. Cook a bit more, and toss with medium shaped pasta, sprinkle w/pecorino. The eggplant melts into a soft topping for the pasta.

--Thai eggplant curry. Green curry is the classic pairing, but I had a tub of red curry paste on hand. I cooked a little fresh ginger & garlic in oil, then fried a few spoonfuls of curry paste to soften. Poured in a can of coconut milk, brought it to a boil, then added peeled eggplant chunks, some mushrooms, carrot slices, kaffir lime leaves, a few shakes of fish sauce, a generous pinch of sugar, and chunks of boneless, skinless chicken. Simmered it, covered, for about 20-25 minutes, stirring a few times, then removed the lid and added a big handful of Thai basil & a squeeze of fresh lime juice. The eggplant are tender & soak up the coconut milk & curry flavors beautifully. It was just as tasty reheated.

[Darienne]

Last year I had a surfeit of eggplants of all shapes, sizes and colors and was directed by a friend to this site: Ashbury's Aubergines

Where there are hundreds of recipes utilizing eggplant.

Yummm. Thanks, Andie. This woman cannot have too many eggplants. (Actually we had Szechuan Eggplant as one of the lunch dishes.)

[heidih]

I was late to the eggplant game as I never consciously tasted one until I was in my 30's! I can't help on the "learn to love" front as I do enjoy them and was thrilled to pick and cook my first one of the season this week.

We have lots of eggplant ideas in older topics. I have been inspired by several ideas in this topic.

With friends who are not fans I have noticed that preparations where the eggplant is in small slices or chunks, and is cooked long enough for it to sort of melt into the dish, are better received. A simple one is to either roast or cook on the stove top lots of sweet peppers, onions, garlic, small potato chunks, and small eggplant chunks with a hot Italian sausage squeezed out of its casing and herbs of choice. Wonderful topped with a lemony yogurt sauce.

[pastrygirl]

the *only* dish I've ever found containing eggplant that has any enjoyment for me is Baba ghanoush

I agree.

Put them in a lovely bowl and use them as a centerpiece on your table.

[annabelle]

You can grill them, Roberta. Cut them in half from stem to stern, crosshatch them and salt heavily. Drain in a colander for 45 min to an hour. Rinse off the salt and pat dry. Paint them with olive oil and grill them cut side down for 10-20 min depending on how large them are. Turn them over and baste some more. Cook them until they are softened and shrunken a bit. Scrape the flesh into a bowl, and season to taste. They are a nice side with grilled meats and can be a component of grilled ratatouille.

Or, we like these: Peeled, sliced, salted and drained as above. Dust with seasoned flour, dip in beaten egg, then in cracker crumbs. Fry gently in oil until golden and keep warm on a rack over a sheet pan as you work in batches. These are a lot like fried green tomatoes.

Edited July 23, 2011 by annabelle (log)

[JeanneCake]

Your question reminded me about a stuffed pepper recipe I used to make with eggplant, bread crumbs and pine nuts - there were other things in the stuffing but that's all I can remember now - I haven't made them in at least 15 years. I tried looking on the epicurious site but nothing jogged my memory.

So slice in half and grill the eggplant til soft; scoop out the flesh and add some bread crumbs, herbs, pine nuts and probably some parmesan or other grated cheese, fill a hollowed out pepper, and grill (or bake). My husband loved these. Maybe I should make these again....

[ScoopKW]

I make eggplant parm -- slicing on a mandoline for consistency.

Then I use the eggplant parm as the "noodles" in lasagna.

[LizD518]

I say not to torture yourself. Sometimes when people get something like a CSA share they get caught up in the fact that they have pre-paid and it would be a waste not to use a certain item, etc, but sometimes you just have to give yourself a break. So, you don't like eggplant, oh well.

On the other hand, if you work in an office where you have an opportunity to bring in a pot-luck dish, you could make a big pan of eggplant parm (I do it lasagna stye, instead of individual cutlets), and feed the office as a treat...

[Panaderia Canadiense]

You could also pickle them - cut them into fingers and brine them for at least 24 hours in a saturated saltwater solution, then pack into jars with cuminseed and fresh herbs of your choice and pour vinegar overtop, then hot-seal for 20 minutes. Aubergine pickles are ready in about a month after jarring. They're delicious that way, and they lose a lot of the "eggplanty" character that you sound like you're objecting to.

You can also try slicing them fairly thin, salting the living snot out of them, and pressing them under heavy weight with paper towels to absorb the moisture. Eggplants have a fairly high nicotinic alkaloid content (which is what makes them icky when raw) and if you treat them in this manner, all of that bitterness just goes out of them - the salt draws it off with the excess moisture in the tissue, which is then absorbed by the paper towels. Then, absolutely, go with Scoop's suggestion - eggplant parm as lasagne noodles.

[FWD]

Ack, I know the feeling! I once got eight beets and was completely at a loss for what to do with them.

My husband loathes eggplant, but there are some Chinese eggplant recipes that he eats gleefully. I think they benefit from the cutting into small chunks and cooking long enough that they sort of melt into the dish, like heidih said. Fish-fragrant eggplant is my personal favorite, if you can get pickled chili peppers. My eggplant-hating husband's favorite is Di San Xian ("Earth three fresh"), which is potatoes, green peppers and eggplant, it's pretty simple to make and the eggplant sort of goes from being an eggplant to being some kind of savory bonus that complements the potato and peppers.

But, you know, if all else fails, maybe you could give them away. (I also like pastrygirl's suggestion of using them for decoration).

[mssurgeon81]

I just made a sensational caponata-style eggplant dish using eggplant that I sliced and grilled over low heat until it was smoky and soft. Then I chopped it roughly, along with a generous scoop of SobaAddict's slow roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic, capers, pine nuts, and lots of fresh basil.

Served it over pasta with a crisp unoaked French Chardonnay....even my eggplant-hating guest loved it!

[baroness]

But, you know, if all else fails, maybe you could give them away. (I also like pastrygirl's suggestion of using them for decoration).

Give them away.

As a fellow eggplant non-enthusiast I absolve you from spending time, labor, and ingredients on a vegetable that you do not have enthusiasm for!

[kayb]

First, I'd peel 'em and salt 'em and let them sit for a half-hour or so, and then rinse off the salt and pat them dry. Then you're ready to try any number of other preparations.

I'm of a mind to try Sichuan eggplant, for which I found a recipe recently that looked quite marvelous.

If you want to cover it up a bit, do an eggplant cassesrole:

Roast your slices of eggplant until they're quite soft. Cut them in chunks. Or cut them in chunks to roast them. Make a bechamel. Put the eggplant and lots of cheese in it. Saute some onions. Throw in whatever else strikes your fancy -- peppers, etc. -- including some Italian bread crumbs. Stir it all up. Sprinkle cheese and breadcrumbs on top and bake it. Call it a gratin, if it makes you feel better.

If you still can't abide it, trade it with your neighbors or fellow CSA-ers for something you love that they can't abide.

K.

[djyee100]

...trade it with your neighbors or fellow CSA-ers for something you love that they can't abide.

You don't say how you receive your CSA order, whether you go to a place in the neighborhood to pick up the order, or whether it's delivered to your home. If you go to a central location, I suggest asking the CSA to set up a "swap box." That's what my CSA does. People drop off the vegs they know they will not eat. Drop off something you dislike one week, pick up something you like better another week.

[Pierogi]

Thanks all ! I think I will be trying to do some of the "cook it down until it melts" suggestions, heavily seasoned with some new Middle Eastern spices I just got (za'tar, Ras al hanout or vadouvan). I can see any of them working well with eggplant (with a heavy hand, to, in fact, COVER UP the taste of the eggplant). mssurgeon81, using it as a pasta topper also sounds like a plan. Enough tomatoes and cheesecan cover up all sorts of nasties.

Darienne and baroness, I did manage to unload the biggest of the critters onto a friend who will pass it on to her parents. No one else I know has any eggplant love, either, unfortunately....

Pastrygirl, I did love the suggestion of using them as decoration, they are so beautiful and the color is simply stunning. Too bad they taste like they do...

I really do want to give them the old college try, I'm more than willing to admit I could've messed up my preps the other (few) times I've tried to cook them. However, if this round still confirms my gut reaction, I will have no problem walking away from them in the future ! But the CSA taught me to like winter squashes, that I also previously thought I hated, so, ya know, hope springs.

kayb and djyee100, as a matter of fact, the CSA *just* set up a swap box last week (I go to their farm for the pick-up). If this round of experimentation doesn't get me into the eggplant ecstasy zone, I will have absolutely no reluctance to toss all those nasty little globes right in there next time I get them!

Thanks again, guys. Looking at the amount left after I off-loaded the Big Kahuna, I feel much less afraid of my refrigerator.

[Shel_B]

Toots loves eggplant with black bean sauce, and has asked me to prepare it at home. I've never made it, and can't tell from recipes I've found on line what may be good or not. So, perhaps the mavens at eGullet can help.

I'd appreciate any good, proven recipes and techniques, bearing in mind that we don't have a wok and Toots' apartment stove doesn't lend itself to wok cooking. It would be nice to get some suggestions for a prepared black bean sauce (I bought some Lee Kum Kee sauce yesterday, but perhaps there's a more interesting version out there) as well as a recipe or ideas for making my own. Toots does not care for green peppers so recipes that include an alternative, as opposed to just leaving them out, would be especially appreciated. In any case, any ideas would be welcome.

None of the recipes I've looked at thus far have suggested salting and eliminating water from the eggplant which, I understand from other recipes, may be a good idea. Comments on this technique? FWIW, I'm not a big fan of eggplant so I've never prepared it - this is just for Toots.

Thanks!

Edited November 13, 2011 by Shel_B (log)

[Alex]

If you use the Search box for "black bean sauce" (with the quotes), you'll get two recipes from Recipe Gullet and two pictorial recipe threads from hzrt8w. There's no specific eggplant recipe, but you might be able to adapt one of them. (I've made several of hzrt8w's recipes, and they're spot on.)

Salting (+ rinsing and pressing) eggplant is often useful for the bigger and more common purple globe variety, but it's unnecessary for the smaller Japanese or Chinese types, which probably is what you'll be using for this dish.

That's really nice of you to make this specially for your inamorata/inamorato.

[Shel_B]

Thanks for the pointer and your comments. Looking forward to playing with this new recipe idea. Kind regards,

[sheetz]

Traditionally the Chinese will deep fry the sliced eggplant before incorporating in the sauce ingredients. It soaks up more oil this way, but that's almost certainly how restaurants make it.

Edit: This youtube video perfectly illustrates how to cook Sichuan-style spicy eggplant. It's in Chinese but it should be pretty easy to get the gist of what's happening. A black bean sauce version would be almost identical except for the different sauce.

Edited November 16, 2011 by sheetz (log)

[scott123]

Considering that garlic sauce and sesame sauce are both known offshoots of brown sauce and that General Tso's and Orange are most likely brown sauce offshoots as well, I'm thinking it's highly likely that black bean sauce is augmented brown sauce also. Just like Indian restaurants save time by making a base and using it for many of the curries, I'm relatively certain that Chinese short order cooks treat brown sauce in a similar fashion.

Even if black bean sauce is an entirely unique creation, unless you're getting it at an upscale establishment, I think the odds that there's some form of sugar in it are astronomical, an ingredient that none of the eGullet recipes include. The razor clam recipe contains Mirin, which is sweetened, but, imo, there's not a Chinese short order cook on the planet willing to shell out the money for Mirin.

In my quest to make old school NY Chinese restaurant food at home, I tried a lot of prepared sauces. In theory, someone should be able to bottle an authentic tasting sauce, but, in practice, I've never seen it. Corn starch, in a cooked sauce, will break down and lose it's thickening abilities overnight, so that makes mass produced sauce a bit trickier, but there's modified starches that should sub nicely. For whatever the reason, bottled sauce is one big bag of fail. Expect any prepared sauce you buy to be close, but not quite right.

Woks, by the way, are not that critical for making Chinese take out at home. A solid large frying pan and a red hot burner will work fine- as long as you don't crowd the pan.

[threestars]

Very nice video! Thanks for sharing...

[Shel_B]

Thanks for all the input thus far. Ideas abound ... off to the market tomorrow to get the eggplant and some other ingredients and play around with some recipes on Sunday.

[Shel_B]

I have heard that male and female eggplants taste different and have different chracteristics which migh be considered for different cooking methods. Is this correct? What are the different characteristcs?

Yesterday a friend showed me a very simple method of preparing eggplant and it's perfect for some of our uses. The eggplant is sliced fairly thin lengthwise, cheese and thin-sliced tomato is put on it, sprinkled with herbs, and then baked. We can use this on sandwiches. Is there any type of eggplant that may be better for this technique? Thanks!

[feedmec00kies]

Pretty sure there's no such thing as a "male" or "female" eggplant (or any other fruit, for that matter). Botanically, they are all have seeds unless they're bred out because it's a means of procreation. Moreover, eggplants self-pollinate, so the plant itself has both male and female organs in each flower.

Seems to be some thing about there being more or less seeds being attributed to gender, though. Since the seeds are a bit bitter, that would make the more seedless fruits tastier.

Edit: I do not believe that there are gendered eggplants. If you want fewer seeds, the general rule is to look for younger eggplants, since the seeds are less mature.

Edit again: The "bred out" comment about seeds is about fruit and vegetables in general (like watermelon), not eggplant.

Edited February 2, 2012 by feedmec00kies (log)