Book Review: Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant

Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

ed. Jenni Ferrari-Adler

New York: Riverhead Books, 2007

            To review this book on an eggplant blog is slightly misleading: beyond its name and cover, the book is not actually about eggplant, but is rather a collection of essays and memoirs on the topic of cooking and dining alone. But this subject, however devoid of actual eggplants, resounds with me and likely other food-blog-readers for whom cooking and experimentation is not only a hobby but a lifestyle. Here in Hyde Park, Chicago – where good restaurants are so scarce that mediocre Thai vs. mediocre Indian is a major topic of campus debate – it’s difficult to get by without cooking for oneself. And for most students overloaded with reading and papers, eating with others becomes an occasional social treat, while the majority of meals are taken at one’s desk with a computer front and center and a bowl of soup on the sidelines. I am one of those fortunate students who lives in a 1-bedroom rather than a cramped studio, in which I have my very own dining table; but that’s for guests. Alone, I find myself eating at the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on the floor, a book propped open by the plate. Occasionally I will sit at the dining table, but only to hunch over a jar of cornichons, stabbing at them with my fork as if  I were hunting little Amazonian fishes.

            The only reason I admit these weird habits is that, thanks to this book, I know I am not alone (so to speak). As the editor articulates in her introduction, such confessions offer an oddly intimate peek into other people’s lives, like glimpsing a neighbor through the window padding around in underwear. What and how we eat when we’re alone – whether treating ourselves to a garnished feast or eating refried beans from the can – is strangely personal, and thereby fascinating.

            While I appreciate the book’s central theme, I enjoyed some of the essays more than others. Many of the memoirs contained sincere confessions, such as the professional chef who eats Chef Boyardee and saltines while standing at the kitchen counter, or the man who made himself sick with his own awful cooking. I also enjoyed the essays on the joys and insecurities of restaurant dining alone, an activity that I have never been brave enough to attempt. But I couldn’t help feeling that some authors presented an idealized version of themselves cooking alone, savoring gourmet delicacies in private, working wonders in a tiny kitchen, or meandering through artsy New York eateries. I couldn’t help but notice how many of the articles -- 11 out of 26 – took place either in New York city, or a miniscule studio apartment, or both (not least the essay entitled, “How to Cook in a New York Apartment”). And looking through the essays as a whole, I realized that confessing what one eats alone seems to gravitate toward one of two poles: it either sounds apologetically quaint, or unapologetically pathetic.

            Does cooking alone need to be quaint or glamorous? Alternately, does it need to be a self-consciously sincere admission of weird, gross habits? Is there anything wrong with it being ordinary, banal, and just plain lonely, as it is for so many people? I wonder about people who cook alone in giant mansions with echoing, shadowy kitchens rather than cozy New York lofts. It makes me think of my college roommate’s father, a brilliant, successful professor who lives in a huge house with a sparkling kitchen larger than most living rooms. He never cooks, preferring to eat exclusively from restaurants; and I can imagine that a meal alone in such a kitchen would feel almost eerie. Maybe a memoir like that would make a less interesting read than those written by bohemian gourmands, but somehow I would rather know that other people experience the same phases of self-cooking drudgery that I do, in which nothing sounds good and one goes to bed hungry. I appreciate the book’s uplifting message that solitary cooking and dining can be empowering, but cooking alone is not all imported olives and white wine for one. In reality, it’s often just sad.

            That said, my personal favorite thing about cooking and eating alone – and this seems to be shared among many of the authors in this book – is the freedom to experiment without the pressure of feeding other people. If I make something mediocre at home, I just eat it anyway, whereas presenting a plate of mediocre food to others leads to a flurry of apologies and self-deprecation. The editor of Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant prefaces her introduction with a quote from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: “It is the privilege of loneliness; in privacy one may do as one chooses.”

            As for eggplant, there is no way to prepare this vegetable that doesn’t involve some sort of slicing, dicing, oiling, roasting, sautéing or grilling. You can’t just spread eggplant onto a piece of bread, nor can you munch on it raw like bell peppers or carrots. Even in its most basic roasted form, eggplant requires time and energy. Which means that, unless you are floating in a sea of free time (as few of us are), cooking eggplant is always a means of treating yourself. That’s what makes this vegetable both annoying and special: eggplant forces you to cook. Maybe the cure for cooking ennui is to find oneself alone in the kitchen with an eggplant, then just see what happens.(Aww, how quaint.)

           

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.

Denver Eggplant, Episode 3: Thai eggplants with kumquat-garlic sauce

(See last entry for explanation of this particular challenge.)

The manner in which my eggplant-related activities are presented on this blog may lead you to believe that I conducted the Thai/Talong taste-test before attempting to cook a dish. This would have been smart. But no, alas, I stupidly barged ahead and made a dish with Thai eggplants before conducting preliminary experiments.

The result was a dish that, while it appears appetizing in photos, was a bit of a failure. I feel, however, that this presents a perfect opportunity to talk about improvisation in the kitchen, the potential for disaster, and learning from mistakes.

Well... namely that. Improvising in the kitchen is fun, failures happen, and mistakes teach.

For instance, before I attempted to cook with Thai eggplants, I assumed that they would be just like every other variety I have cooked – frying them in oil would break them down quickly, at which point they would assume the ideal state of creamy softness. It turns out, though, that Thai eggplants are different from other varieties in the following ways:

a) With the exception of a thin layer of flesh on the outside, Thai eggplants are densely packed with hard seeds.

b) Because of this, they take ages to break down. I fried them in steep oil for about 10-15 minutes before they softened.

c) Once the eggplants break down, the patterned skin blisters and peels off in an unattractive fashion.

Full of seeds.

In future, I would cook the eggplants in such a way that I could remove the seeds and skins before serving (e.g., oven-roasting). I’m curious to know how they are prepared in Thai cuisine (all the eggplant dishes I’ve eaten in Thai restaurants are cooked with Chinese eggplants). Do Thai people simply eat the seeds? Do the seeds provide an important texture element? Or are the eggplants meticulously de-seeded and skinned before they are tossed in the wok?

My pseudo-failed experiment was Thai eggplants with kumquats in kumquat-garlic sauce.

Somehow, in my mind, this was going to be obscenely delicious because I recalled eating whole kumquats as a child. My nostalgia caused me to forget how strong kumquats are, such that I used way-too-many way-too-large chunks. The sauce also turned out a bit sour from all the kumquat juice and pulp.

A soy-sauce-based garlic sauce with kumquat juice instead of rice vinegar.

I used a few of these Thai bird's-eye chilis whole to impart spiciness.
 These chilis are almost as hot as habaneros, so take caution.

My mother owns a wok, allowing me to appear badass while cooking.

The eggplants took forever to cook, probably owing to the seed pockets.

Eventually they broke down; here you see the blistering peels.

I fried some onions with juiced kumquat halves.

Then added the sauce.

Then simmered everything together.

The recipe was not entirely a bust, however. The sourness of the sauce was tempered after the dish sat out on the counter for a couple hours. The kumquat flavor did turn out to be a nice complement to the garlic sauce. And above all, it looked kind of pretty.

Appears appetizing...

If anything, I hope my tale of eggplant-woe will encourage, rather than discourage, kitchen improvisation. You never know when one of your kitchen experiments will yield superb results; and if it fails, it was a learning experience. I, for instance, learned that I am generally lousy at Asian cooking.


But ideally, all kitchen experimenters have significant others with no taste-buds who will unquestioningly gobble up the failed leftovers. Right?

Fab Four, Episode 2: Turkish Imam Bayildi

 (See earlier entry, “Fab Four,” for the premise of the next four entries. And also cute pictures of my cat sniffing eggplants.)

My second recipe involves the Italian eggplant, which is similar in size to the Iranian variety. Owing to its smallish size, I decided to make one of my favorite dishes of all time, Imam Bayildi (or Imam Baildi). This Turkish dish supposedly translates as “the priest fainted”; as the story goes, an imam who encountered this dish was overwhelmed by all the oil and swooned.

The best thing about this straightforward dish is the long cooking time, which allows the tomato mixture to caramelize; in fact, if it isn’t thoroughly caramelized when you take it from the oven, you’re removing it too soon. This dish is especially good after sitting overnight. It is best served at room temperature or slightly warmed on a pile of fava beans or braised greens.

Ingredients

Serves 4

2 Italian eggplants (or other comparably petite varieties)

4 ripe tomatoes

1 medium onion

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 good-sized handful of fresh parsley, minced

1 good-sized handful of pine nuts (which unfortunately I didn’t have today, pardon their absence)

ca. 1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Cut eggplants in half, coat spongy side in olive oil, and roast in the oven at 350°F for about 10-20 minutes, or however long it takes to prepare tomato mixture.

Chop onion and sauté in olive oil until translucent. Add crushed garlic. Don’t leave garlic in the pot for too long before adding tomatoes: garlic will burn fast and burnt garlic is pretty nasty. 

Add chopped tomatoes and cook down for about 10 minutes. 

Add sugar, salt and pepper. Remove from heat and stir in pine nuts and parsley. Remove eggplants from oven. Top each eggplant with a generous pile of tomato mixture and return to the oven for 30-40 minutes – however long it takes for the outside to become caramelized.

Imam Bayildi is delicious with flatbread, spicy olives, and a slab of white cheese (like feta, smoked mozzarella or Turkish-style farmer's cheese). Mmm... I’ve eaten about five times today and I’m salivating anyway. 

Eggplant 101: Ways Not to Ruin Your Aubergine

Have you ever gone over for a meal at the home of an ambitious yet clueless cook? Were you served slices of rubbery, greenish foam with the consistency of dehydrated apples and the flavor of old teabags? If so, you have witnessed the ruination of a perfectly good eggplant.

Eggplant is not difficult to get right – with a few tips, something as simple as roasted eggplant slices will be utterly delicious. The cooking of all forms of eggplant centers around one crucial tenet:

LOTS OF OIL!

When eggplant is either undercooked or prepared without any oil, the taste and texture suffer. The ideal texture for eggplant is melt-in-your-mouth mushiness, which is only possible when you give it a good dousing with your favorite oil (I use extra virgin olive without exception). I’ve heard of people boiling eggplant in soups, but it often turns rubbery and bland. Keep in mind that eggplant is like a sponge – it will soak up a ton of oil at first, but as you cook it down, it exudes the oil back into the pan. Don’t worry if your eggplant is somewhat greasy. In aubergine-land, greasy equals tasty.

Before you cook your eggplant, taste a tiny bit of it raw. If it’s bitter, you would be wise to salt the thing before you cook it. Cut the eggplant into half-inch round slices. Lay the slices out and sprinkle generously with salt. Wait 10-15 minutes; the slices will perspire. Wipe the salt and the perspiration off with a towel, then commence cooking.

Most of the bitterness in eggplant (if your eggplant is bitter at all – a good eggplant will be sweet without any salting) lies in its seeds and its juice. If you are baking your eggplant whole in the oven, you can remove the seed lobes after it’s baked and gently wring out the flesh, removing the caramel-brown juice. This method is as effective as salting, but takes a little longer; however, it’s super fun if you like squishy things.

About the skin: unless it’s uncommonly tough, or unless I'll be grinding the eggplant into a paste, I never bother to remove it.

Aaaand that’s how you avoid ruining an eggplant!

Extra special addendum: if you're cooking with Japanese or Chinese eggplants, as well as many of the smaller eggplant varieties, you practically never need to salt them; these varieties are naturally sweet and have few seeds. 

Inaugural (Ineggural? Inauberginural?)

I remember the day when my love affair with eggplant began.

This is a lousy inaugural sentence for the following reasons:

a) My relationship with eggplant is not a love affair. If it were love, I would not eat eggplants, I would kiss them goodnight or take them fishing. The things I do to eggplants could be best represented in a medieval torture manual. (Because I’m sure that people wrote detailed treatises on torture back then. On human parchment. IN BLOOD.)

b) My determination to eat eggplant as often as possible has no origin. I was raised eating eggplant and at some point during my childhood I decided that it was my favorite food. To this day, every time I am in a grocery store, I buy an eggplant. Especially if it has an eggplant weenie. 

c) Lists must contain three items.

So perhaps I’d better start by determining why my enthusiasm for eggplant is so boundless. Eggplant is mushy, stringy, sometimes bitter, sometimes tough, full of seeds – and raw eggplant is more like foam insulation than vegetable. But when cooked properly, eggplant has the most heavenly creamy taste. It absorbs other flavors without relinquishing its own. It can be prepared in too many ways to count. It’s used in cuisines across the globe – Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Russian, Italian, French, Greek, Turkish, Middle Eastern, North African, et al. More than any other ingredient I know, eggplant is a window into the cuisines of the world.

On this blog I’ll present cooking tips, botany, recipes (both from trusty cookbooks as well as recipes I’ve invented or adapted), photographs, anecdotes, and eggplant-related Chicago restaurant reviews. I have two goals in mind: to make my readers salivate, and to get more people cooking and appreciating eggplant for the wonder-vegetable (or fruit, actually) that it is.

Stay posted, fellow auberginophiles!