Eggplants Abroad, Episode 2: WWOOFing in France

Former sous-chef Dan is currently WWOOFing in France. He sends the following eggplant updates, as quoted directly from an e-mail that I have not yet received permission to quote, but oh well:

I am sending you some pictures, which include, variously a) eggplants and b) cats. I thought you'd like them.

At the end there are two eggplant dishes - one is an eggplant caviar I made with my friend in Lyon for a poker night, the second is a dish with eggplants and zucchini we had at the farm. They are both super simple so I didn't bother asking for a recipe. But I thought the pictures of eggplants in the greenhouses would interest you the most.

Presenting vegetables to cats: an Aubergenius specialty.

Thanks, Dan!

Once again, if you are abroad and would like to update the blogosphere on your eggplant-related activities, please e-mail me. See previous entry for submission details. Of which there are few. So here are some more: include in your e-mail some descriptions of your photos and let me know whether you'd like to be featured by full name, first name, or anonymously.

P.S. People have complained of some difficulty commenting, and it looks like many comments on this blog have been spontaneously deleted. I have no idea why. If you are an experienced blogger and know what's going on (as well as why my font size keeps changing randomly), please let me know. Merci et bon soir.

Remiss

I apologize for the blog hiatus. The reasons are thus:


1. I am currently in the midst of an apartment move. Fortunately, the new kitchen has increased counter space, enabling me to cover approximately 4x more surface area with eggplants.
2. The recent summer heat wave has discouraged me from cooking/heating up the apartment, with the exception of little 10-minute toaster-oven pizzas that use pocketless pitas as crusts.
3. I'm working on a few ambitious entries that will take a while, e.g. book review, anthology of eggplants abroad, and "three sisters" recipes. More in the coming month.


In the meantime, I couldn't resist buying these beautiful stripey eggplants, called "zebra" or "graffiti" eggplant, which are among the more attractive varieties commonly available in many supermarkets.

Graffiti 'em on up.

They look sort of like marble from up close.

Kitty enjoys the view.

Unfortunately, in the midst of the heat, all I felt like doing was sautéing them to put on my mini-pizzas. Someday soon I will figure out something to do with them that displays their beautiful skins, such as stuffed eggplants or maybe Chinese dragon eggplant, in which the entire shape of the eggplant is preserved. Until then, I'll just take pretty pictures of them.

Persian-style Eggplant Yogurt Salad

This Iranian dish, called Borani-e Bademjan, is one of a variety of eggplant-yogurt salads that are easy, delicious, and – after cooling the fridge for a few hours – refreshing in hot weather. One can easily vary the seasonings to reflect different cuisines: paprika and parsley for Turkish, garam masala, coriander and cilantro for Indian, miscellaneous spices for Miscellaneous. The dish is especially good with the stiff, dense yogurt sold in Iranian groceries, such as Golchin brand, but is delicious with runny varieties as well.

This dinner, which consisted of yogurt salad, a greens salad, and homemade flatbread, was aided by sous-chef and photographer Dan, whom I also credit with conceiving the name “Aubergenius.”

And also credited with discovering a really great $8 wine.

The flatbread I made was tasty, but not quite good enough to post a recipe, so I’ll just recommend that you use your favorite bread recipe or storebought pita.

This flatbread recipe called for the breads to be cooked dry in the pan, but they were improved by frying in olive oil.

Ingredients

1 large or 2 medium/small eggplants

12-16 oz plain yogurt

A handful of fresh mint leaves

1 clove garlic

Salt, cumin and coriander to taste

Cut the eggplant into slivers by slicing down the length of the eggplant, cutting long strips, and halving the strips.

Roast the slivers on a baking sheet at 350°, coating them with a generous quantity of olive oil (i.e., if they don’t turn yellow-green, it’s not enough oil). Be sure to toss the eggplant slices every 10 minutes. Cooking time takes about 20-30 minutes total. Meanwhile, mix the yogurt, diced (or scissor-snipped) mint leaves, crushed garlic, and salt to taste. Add a small dash of cumin and coriander – I prefer a small quantity of spice to avoid overwhelming the mint flavor.

Use of an oversized, red plastic bowl is imperative.

Remove eggplant slices when they are soft all the way through, without any spongy patches, and have a nice golden brown sear.

The proper state of oily mushiness.

Mix eggplant slivers with the yogurt sauce and add more salt if needed.

This salad is delicious warm and cold. If you wish to make a richer salad, you can mash up feta into the yogurt in lieu of salt.

Sous-chef, an empty bowl, and a kitty strung out on catnip.

Fab Four

Not everyone is as fortunate as I am. I live a few blocks away from a locally-owned produce shop that sells four different varieties of eggplant.

A pile o' eggplants.

The largest is the common eggplant, the next smallest is the Italian or “baby” eggplant, the tiny teardrops are Indian eggplants, and the long thin variety are Chinese eggplants.

Indian eggplants are wee.

To give a sense of scale, I presented each eggplant to my feline. Please note that this feline is rather tubby and adjust your sense of scale accordingly.

Feline investigates common eggplant.

Feline sports Indian eggplant mustache.

Feline nibbles Italian eggplant.

Feline discovers joys of Chinese eggplant.

Over the course of the next few entries, I will present four different dishes drawing out the particular characteristics of each of these eggplant varieties. GET EXCITED.