Adventures in Eggplant

EGGPLANT

What do you do with eggplant??
Purple and blobby - and shaped like a cheap balloon.
Who wants to eat THAT?

Well, I do!
I've mastered tofu, tempeh and even enjoyed kombucha - ah, but EGGPLANT?  No.  Haven't gone there. It's so tough, spongy and unforgiving.


I'm no Iron Chef, but I was up for this culinary battle. My first attempts were, shall we just say, spectacular?  My presentation was terrible - it looked like an alien had melted on my plate.  And the melt-in-your-mouth factor was missing; in fact, it tasted awful. The only way it was even decent was breaded and fried. Well, anything can taste good that way!  So no points from round one.

Round two: I kept insisting on preparing it with the skin intact.  Very unappealing!  Why was I doing that?  It was one of the times that you suddenly become aware - and ask yourself if there is a reason.  Like, why do I drive the same route every day? Or, why do I keep putting my socks in the lower drawer when I use it more often than the top drawer? Or, why do I use this small knife to chop when a larger one is better? So then I decided to peel it.  But because I felt I was violating some golden chef rule, I would leave a token bit on - ha!  Crazy.  Just put it in the compost pile Rose... and move on!

Only then did I really make progress.  And NO, I did not use any recipes.  That takes the magic out of cooking for me.  To cook is to play, and to bake is to follow.  Cooking releases creative juices and is a great pleasure for my senses. I love the way the house smells now when I make eggplant.

Round three: So I tried different variations, and eventually found that a slow simmer in olive oil, a touch of butter and some sesame oil were the key flavor notes.  Then I could mix it with anything including spinach, carrots, mushrooms, almonds, ginger and onion.  It has a soft texture that  gently surrounds the other veggies.  Eggplant is now a regular in my weekly grocery run.


My Next Adventure:

Homemade spaghetti sauce!  I've got some tomato plants growing in my little garden.  That is another food challenge that I have avoided because sauce takes some skill at blending flavors.  Shouldn't I have to spend at least $4 to get a good premade sauce?
Never mind that I make fresh-salsa-to-die-for!  Tomato sauce, um, I just don't know.  Somehow I think the eggplant was the easier task.

Let me know how it goes!

~ Rose