When I go shopping at the farmers market I’ almost always drawn to the stands that have the eggplants, because these days they come in such an amazing range of colors and shapes. And Chef Jerry Pellegrino told me, it used to be that people shied away from cooking eggplant, but we seem to be making some progress on that front.
I think that’s true. The myth was that eggplant was super bitter and you had to salt the heck out of it to remove the bitterness. That may be true of old, large eggplants, but the smaller younger ones are fairly mild. One myth was that the long ones with a pointed end were “male” and had smaller, fewer seeds than the rounded “female” ones. Here’s some truth to that, but eggplants are gender neutral. There is no male eggplant, just individual ones with smaller seeds, which is good.
The seeds can be bitter, and so is the skin.
So let’s talk about salting. It is a good method for reducing the amount of water in an eggplant, which can be considerable. They’re actually like little sponges. The more water the more dilute the flavor. So let’s say you cut your eggplant into slices or cubes: go ahead and sprinkle a bunch of salt on them to “sweat” away the excess water. Give them between 30 and 60 minutes. And then, you’ll want to pat the eggplant dry before cooking it.
We tried making stuffed eggplants a little while ago, and we discovered It seems that you need to pre-roast the halved eggplants to get both the flesh and the skin tender. We’d say
roast it long enough that you can easily poke a toothpick through the skin and you’re good to go.
Now of course there are hundreds of ways to stuff an eggplant. Jerry says there’s two basic choices: with meat or vegetarian. If you go with meat, you’ll want it to be ground up, so ground beef, ground lamb, ground turkey all work. Also, if you hollow out your eggplant “shells” before roasting, save the flesh and use it with the stuffing. For a vegetarian approach, the sky’s the limit. I would always start with onions and carrots, but just about anything else would be great. Try cubed zucchini or shredded sweet potatoes. And here’s something else: eggplant plays very nicely with just about any spice you can think of, so don’t be afraid to give your spice rack a workout.
Some of the recipes we saw called for peeling the eggplant. That makes sense if you, say, want to cut the flesh into cubes or strips. It eliminates having to worry about tough eggplant skin.
Another tip: if you’re going to sauté eggplant, you’ll need a little extra olive oil.
Remember, the eggplant flesh is like a sponge and it’s going to soak up that oil quickly. So be indulgent and don’t be stingy with the oil.
Jerry has some favorite eggplant dishes. For instance, eggplant lasagna. Trim and partially peel the eggplant, then cut it into long thin slices, between ¼” and ½” thick. Put them on a baking sheet, brush with olive oil and roast until golden brown. What you’re doing is using the eggplant slices instead of pasta. So, you just assemble your lasagna with your tomato sauce, loaded with chopped up veggies, and your various cheese layers. You’ll need two or three eggplants to get the three layers you want and be sure to top everything off with one final coating of cheese.
Then of course there’s ratatouille and eggplant caviar. A quick dive into the Internet will turn up dozens of good recipes.
