Eggplant/Aubergine

[Milagai]

ahem: i do feel obliged to admonish that eggplants are a late summer ingredient. so unless you're in teh southern hemisphere, naughty naughty.

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I know - I did mention this in the original post. I try and keep my food miles down but it's around this time of year you get a little tired of cabbages and root vegetables, especially as we have had a couple of bright sunny days this week.

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In my grocery (big chain) store today,

lo and behold, large purple eggplants labeled

Produce of USA on sale at 99c / lb....

Hothouse? Other explanations?

Milagai

[C. sapidus]

I have many favorite eggplant/aubergine recipes: fish-fragrant eggplant from Land of Plenty; makhua oop (“best eggplant dish ever”) from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet; and broiled/grilled eggplant with rosemary, garlic, and olive oil from Marcella Hazan. Asian Week (click) has plausible-looking recipes for the first two.

Mrs. C makes an addictive babaganouj. It must be fairly labor-intensive because she hasn’t made it for a long time even though I drop regular hints about how much I like it.

I wonder if eggplant could be substituted for tofu in mapo dofu (mapo makhua?).

Gruzia: Your description of Georgian eggplant is making my mouth water.

[mizducky]

You may want to try the smaller variety of eggplant that is often sold at asian markets. They take far less time to cook and I find that they have less bitterness.

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It's been my experience also that the Asian varieties of eggplant seem to run less bitter on average than the big bulbous Euro-American variety. I don't necessarily get the littlest ones--I tend to go for the long skinny ones. Their skins also tend to be much more tender and mild-flavored than the Euro ones. I love to put unpeeled chunks of it into soups and stews.

I love all sorts of eggplant dishes--Italian, Chinese, Indian, Mediterranean/Middle Eastern, you name it--but I think my all-time favorite to make is ratatouille. The first batch of the summer is an annual personal kitchen rite with me. I love how the eggplant absorbs all the tomato/garlic/basil flavors and gets so succulent.

Following a tip from Alton Brown, when I roast a whole (Euro) eggplant all the way to super-soft (usually to make baba ghanoush), I now drain it in a colander for awhile after I've gotten it out of its skin. That does seem to drain away a lot of bitter juices that were liberated by the roasting process. Alton also had a method for getting a soft squishy whole cooked eggplant out of its skin that I found pretty neat, if not quite as easy as he made it look: you wrap the eggplant in plastic wrap, cut off the 'plant's green cap, and then use the plastic wrap to help you squeeze the eggplant's pulp out of its skin like toothpaste from a tube.

[sandra]

I'm a big fan of roasting them...

Try it in a pasta sauce, make cubes of an eggplant, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper - then in a single layer roast until golden brown and soft. Then mix in with a simple toamto sauce and toss with pasta...

Or, cut thick slices of aubergine, oil, s&p, single layer again and roast until golden - good for stacks of veges, or just as side dish - add any herb you like...

Roasted cubes put through a couscous or pasta salad, etc...

[prasantrin]

I wonder if eggplant could be substituted for tofu in mapo dofu (mapo makhua?).

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In Japanese it's called "mabo nasu".

[C. sapidus]

I wonder if eggplant could be substituted for tofu in mapo dofu (mapo makhua?).

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In Japanese it's called "mabo nasu".

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Awesome! Thanks, Rona. And the list of things to try grows longer . . .

[Carlovski]

I agree.  I don't normally fuss with souffle either, but this one was so easy I decided to give it a go.  It was worth it.  It's almost like a light and airy baba ghanoush.

The idea of mixing some protein in sounds pretty good too.  I'd probably vote for ground lamb to keep it more authentic.

Let us know if you try this and what your results are.

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I actually thought it sounded horrible! Lamb would make a bit more sense but I doubt either of them would rise.

[ghostrider]

I've never understood the point of eating eggplant. Lord knows I've tried them in every form imaginable. They just always leave me wondering why I bothered.

I don't really dislike them, in the sense that I find them repulsive like okra or tapioca. They just bore me.

When I was much younger there was a Szechuan eggplant & shredded pork dish that I liked. One day I realized that it was the spicy sauce & the pork that I really liked & the eggplant was just taking up space. That was it with eggplant for me.

I still don't mind a good baba gnoush as part of a Middle Eastern meal, but it doesn't set me to raving (in a good way) either.

I would ask folks to explain what it is they like about eggplant, but ultimately one's tastes are what they are.

I just wish I could share in some of the enthusiasm here.

[mizducky]

Eggplant all on its own is admittedly not a "big flavor" item. It does have a mild subtle flavor that I like. But yeah, I do prefer piling a lot of flavor on the (relatively) blank canvas. What the eggplant contributes is texture. Or more accurately textures. You can get an especially wide variety of different mouthfeels out of it depending on how you treat it, and that's lots of fun to play with, and to eat.

Edited March 11, 2007 by mizducky (log)

[KatieLoeb]

I agree.  I don't normally fuss with souffle either, but this one was so easy I decided to give it a go.  It was worth it.  It's almost like a light and airy baba ghanoush.

The idea of mixing some protein in sounds pretty good too.  I'd probably vote for ground lamb to keep it more authentic.

Let us know if you try this and what your results are.

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I actually thought it sounded horrible! Lamb would make a bit more sense but I doubt either of them would rise.

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Well, see, this is what I was saying. I've never really messed around with souffles before so I don't know if mixing in the sauteed ground meat would ruin it or not. If it stayed the same texture it would be tasty, I'm certain, but if it ruined the "fluffiness" of the dish then you are quite correct, and it would be awful.

[purplewiz]

The creamed eggplant recipe from Smithy's foodblog is wonderful. Just wonderful, and a great base for any braised beef dish with lots of thick sauce.

My tip for eggplant is to grill them on an outdoor barbecue whenever possible, instead of frying or broiling or baking. The grill gives eggplant a smoky flavor that just adds another layer of flavor. I love the flavor of grilled eggplant and could it eat with just a sprinkling of a good sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Marcia.

Edited March 12, 2007 by purplewiz (log)

[Peter the eater]

Here is what I like to do with eggplant, which I don't believe has been mentioned:

slice them unpeeled into long slender strips and "quick pickle" them on the stove with vinegar, water, salt, sugar. I'll usually add a few hot peppers and garlic. I find they can stay quite firm and almost feel like linguine in the mouth.

[Khadija]

Here is what I like to do with eggplant, which I don't believe has been mentioned:

slice them unpeeled into long slender strips and "quick pickle" them on the stove with vinegar, water, salt, sugar. I'll usually add a few hot peppers and garlic. I find they can stay quite firm and almost feel like linguine in the mouth.

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This method sounds somewhat like, but not exactly the same as, a technique used to make "eggplant pasta" demonstrated on one episode of Good Eats. I haven't followed the recipe provided by Alton Brown on the Foodnetwork, but I thought I would try to make eggplant noodles, given my love of eggplant.

So, tonight, I took two large Italian eggplants, peeled, and then cut into "linguine" strips, with a mandoline. I salted the strips and "purged" them in a colander for about 45 minutes. Then I made pad thai, using the eggplant pasta instead of rice noodles. The eggplant doesn't taste like rice noodles, but since it absorbs the sauce, the dish did taste like pad thai. I just snuck a bite of the leftovers, which have absorbed the sauce even more, and I really like it.

[melamed]

This is a wonderful thread and I want to try every recipe here. I was always told to salt my eggplants to reduce bitterness but I have stopped since eggplants are not as bitter as they used to be, is salting still widely done?

The trend here is to grill a whole eggplant (I use the long black Japanese eggplants). When the eggplant has completely collapsed then the flesh is pureed and combined with creamed mashed potatoes for an interesting Middle Eastern twist on the common side dish.

Another way is slicing the eggplants, brushing with olive oil, sprinking with salt/pepper and putting in the oven for about 45 minutes on medium high (200 C),

perhaps these should have been left in a bit longer.

[piazzola]

To me my latest discovery has been charrgrilled eggplant with charmoula which is almost identical to chimichurri except fresh cilantro is not known and used so it is a welcomed change. Even thought I have quite a few Spanish speaking Moor friends few of them would suggest such recipes but stressed that most Spanish cultural heritage is Moor.

[Starkman]

Hello all,

Because eggplant is watery and can be bitter, most recipes advocate salting eggplant, letting it drain and then rinsing it before using/cooking it. However, I've seen recipes where there's no salting. If it weren't for the fact that one recipe salts the eggplant but a similar recipe doesn't, it'd probably be pretty easy to figure out why the similar recipes do not salt the eggplant.

So my question is when, if ever, is it okay to NOT salt eggplant before using it?

Thanks,

Starkman

[HYoungJoo]

I heard that when they are young and have less seeds the bitterness factor is nonexistent. And since salt draws out the water.... my unscientific conclusion would be "It would be okay to not salt eggplants when they are young/tender and you don't care about the amount of moisture that comes out during the cooking process"

[Lisa Shock]

Hello all,

Because eggplant is watery and can be bitter, most recipes advocate salting eggplant, letting it drain and then rinsing it before using/cooking it. However, I've seen recipes where there's no salting. If it weren't for the fact that one recipe salts the eggplant but a similar recipe doesn't, it'd probably be pretty easy to figure out why the similar recipes do not salt the eggplant.

So my question is when, if ever, is it okay to NOT salt eggplant before using it?

Thanks,

Starkman

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The easiest thing to do is take a bite of the raw eggplant and see if it's bitter. I find that with a really bitter one, even salting doesn't really help, so I compost them and start over. I gave up salting them years ago.

[Adam Balic]

Many older varieties need salting as they are excessively bitter, but it isn't required for most types that are sold in the suoermarket etc. However, salting doesn't just remove bitterness, it removes moisture and changes the texture of the eggplant. So I tend to salt, except for very liquid dishes.

[Peter the eater]

The easiest thing to do is take a bite of the raw eggplant and see if it's bitter. I find that with a really bitter one, even salting doesn't really help, so I compost them and start over. I gave up salting them years ago.

Exactly right Lisa. The small ones I buy are never bitter: dwarfs, globes, snakes.

[nickrey]

When I first started cooking I used to salt as recommended in the recipe.

After a while I stopped and have not really noticed a difference.

More recently I read somewhere (sorry I read a lot of food articles, can't remember exact source) that the eggplants we tend to get in Australia are not as bitter as ones that are used in many others places around the world.

I'd definitely support tasting first and deciding to salt on the basis of actual flavour rather than just slavishly following a recipe that may have used functionally different base ingredients.

Edited May 17, 2009 by nickrey (log)

[Domestic Goddess]

I've never encountered a bitter eggplant in the Philippines and here in Korea. Maybe it's a regional thing?

[cfm]

Can I ask an additional question? I don't salt, because I have never found a problem with bitterness. But, I do notice a tingling sensation on my lips when I eat aubergine dishes - I am beginning to wonder if this is the "bitterness"? Is it normal?

Catherine

[Hiroyuki]

I've never encountered a bitter eggplant in the Philippines and here in Korea. Maybe it's a regional thing?

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I've never seen or heard of bitter eggplants, either. In Japan, it is a common practice to soak eggplants in cold water for "aku nuki" (lit. harshness removal) after cutting.

[Dianabanana]

I agree with Lisa--if it is a bitter, seedy eggplant, no amount of salting will help. If you take care to choose a firm, glossy eggplant, you shouldn't have a problem with bitterness. I haven't salted in probably 20 years.

Another thing I've noticed--there is hardly such a thing as an underripe eggplant. I'm exaggerating a little, of course, but I have noticed from my cold-climate experiments with growing them that even the ones that are nowhere near mature when the first frost hits taste perfectly fine.