Spicy Eggplant Zucchini Relish

It's zucchini season! I think? Is that why they're so cheap in the grocery these days?

This evening I splurged on some fancy bread from my favorite neighborhood bakery (big fan of the bakery; not the restaurant) and decided to experiment with a spicy condiment. My thought was a hybrid of ratatouille, zaalouk, and eggplant caviar, with some smoky chipotle for umami and just enough spicy kick to warrant a dollop of yogurt on top. Because there must always, always be a dollop of yogurt on top.

It only just occurs to me that I've never posted ratatouille on this blog. I made an amazing rendition some months ago from one of Ottolenghi's cookbooks -- an unusual version that gets pan-roasted and caramelized -- but I never photographed it. Some part of me fears that, since no real life ratatouille can surpass this, the standards are unbearably high.

Spicy Eggplant Zucchini Relish
for your delectation

Ingredients
1/2 vidalia onion, chopped
3 zucchini, cubed
1 large eggplant, cubed
2 cloves garlic, crushed
spoonful of broth
olive oil
coriander, paprika, cumin (just a tiny dash)
1/4 to 1/2 of a chipotle pepper (from the can)
lemon or lime juice to taste
salt, pepper to taste
minced cilantro on top
(optional: a dash of honey)

Note: I think turmeric would be good in here, but I'm fresh out. In retrospect, too, I might add a scoop of tahini.

One of my special-est birthday presents: a handmade ceramic bowl.
It pays to have artsy friends.

Method
Chop up the chopped stuff. Sauté onion in olive oil until golden. Add spices, more oil, eggplant, zucchini, and garlic. Cook down, stirring frequently. Add chipotle, broth, and honey if you like sweet & spicy. Cover and simmer until cooked way down. Stir often enough that relish does not burn. Cook until eggplant and zucchini pieces are falling apart into a nearly indiscernible mush; at a certain point, remove the lid and cook off some of the liquid. Remove from heat. Add more salt and pepper to taste, fresh lime/lemon juice, and top with cilantro. Serve with your favorite carbs.

The way so many eggplant adventures begin.

Cilantro a little droopy; feels left out?

Eggplants and spices and oil and zucchinis, just before the cooking begins.

Simmered about 7 minutes. Still a bit raw.

... simmer down now. (ca. 15 minutes)

...and mush. Around 20-30 minutes of mushifying. But the longer you cook it, the better it tastes. Keep it going.

Recommended complements:
feta
goat cheese
seeded crackers
individually wrapped hanks of injera from your freezer (what, you don't have those?)
tapenade
a cheap, crappy wine with a beautiful label that you thought would taste good*

A little bread cave.

*The wine, not the label. Smart alecks of the world, I'm one step ahead of you.

Diary of a Young Eggplant

Lately I've been a lazy eggplantophile. Every eggplant I buy gets automatically converted into roasted slices and only rarely elevated to an eggplant-tomato salad (at best). The creativity stops there. My latest slices were piled onto a flatbread -- and this was no homemade triumph of floury aprons, but just a blob of Trader Joe's pizza dough:

Pictured here with chipotle lentils and feta.

Tasty... but not especially inventive.

Sheer laziness aside, my cooking nonchalance marks an important turning point in my eggplant life. My priorities have shifted from consumption to production. My fire escape has now become a nursery for new generations of nightshades.

Poblano, tomatillo, san marzano, and... 

"Little Fingers." Because I teach piano. Isn't that precious.

My urban garden got off to a rough start. This year's spring in Chicago has been so miserably cold that the plants almost died their first night outdoors. I had to keep them inside, where they starved for sun and warmed themselves over the heat of my obsessive birthday-picnic cooking-extravaganza. (I made about 10 things. One of them was... tomato eggplant salad. My repertoire needs a boost.)

Our young hero: lacking sun, hoisted high away from the window to escape the cruel jaws of a noshy cat.

I couldn't help imagining some kind of Pixar movie where the outdoor plants and the indoor plants are forced into uncomfortable conversation. Very Finding Nemo. So the pothos is like, "hey Johnny, we've got company!" and the money plant is like "what are y'all doing on our block?" and the tomato is like "yeah dude, we're new on the block" and the tomatillo just blushes and curls a finger around its tendrils.

"It's ok, little guy. Just be patient. They'll come round."

Meanwhile, shit's going down at the windowsill.

"Psst. Who's that scary goth dude?"
"Shut up shut up! He's looking at us!"

As our young eggplant hero matures, I'll chart his growth in a kind of leafy Bildungsroman. Hopefully by the end of the summer, I'll have some little fingers to roast into tiny little slices and make a tiny little eggplant salad for a tiny hedgehog.