Sweet and Sour Eggplant Salad

This is from Claudia Roden. It's simple enough to let the flavor of the eggplant come through.

Sweet and Sour Eggplant

Olive oil

1 large Spanish onion, coarsely chopped

1 pound eggplant, partially peeled and cut in 3/4-inch cubes

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1-pound can diced tomatoes

4 tablespoons chopped parsley

3 tablespoons wine vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground red chili

Cover bottom of a large skillet with oil and heat. Saute onion until soft and golden. Add eggplant and cook, stirring, for about five minutes. Then add garlic and cook until colored.

Add remaining ingredients and cook over very low heat for 20 minutes. Serve cold (we had it warm last night and cold today--delicious).

And here's the Sidecar recipe. Russell made these for us.

Sidecar

1 part lemon juice

1 part Cointreau

2 parts cognac

Shake with ice.

And our version:

Poor Man's Sidecar

1 part lemon juice

1 part Triple Sec

2 parts bourbon

Tuna-Caper Pasta Sauce

From the department of Really Easy Late Night Dinners, here's some tuna-caper pasta sauce I made yesterday.

Lawson has a long tradition of kitchen-sink-style pasta dishes, usually containing tomatoes, canned tuna or clams, olives, parsley -- whatever's around. He hasn't made one in a while, though, and I wanted one, so I made my own version. It turned into a much more traditional Italian rendition than his usually are.

It's not a very tomato-ey sauce -- don't expect it to be red. The rich tuna flavor and the bright capers should be the dominant flavors. The garlic is more like a base.

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1-2 tablespoons garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup vermouth
• 2 cans tuna, with juice
• 1 tablespoon capers
• regular (14.5 oz) can diced or stewed tomatoes, seasoned or plain
• salt
• pepper
• small handful parsley, chopped

Saute the garlic very slowly over medium-low heat until light golden. Add the rest of the ingredients except the parsley and simmer slowly until flavors blend, 10-30 minutes. The sauce should be fairly wet; it very easily gets absorbed into the pasta.

If you like, you can roast a pan full of diced eggplant at 450 degrees while you're making the sauce, then toss the eggplant in with the pasta and sauce. In that case, make sure the sauce is really wet.

I used bowtie pasta and several garden eggplants. It was enough for two dinners and one leftover lunch -- perfect.

Eggplant, Marital Accord, and the Microwave

Wow--that's a lot of topic to cover in one post.

When I cook eggplant I love to leave the skin on because it's a beautiful color and provides texture. Dad finds it indigestible, so I peel off half or more, and proceed with my dish.

And then--I prep the eggplant for this dish in the microwave. I learned this from reading a Barbara Kafka microwave cookbook at least twenty years ago. I rarely do anything with the microwave except thawing and reheating, but this step really keeps the eggplant from soaking up a ton of oil.

Szechuan Eggplant

1 large eggplant
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Peel eggplant and cut in 1/2" x 3" strips. Toss with oil. Microwave, covered, for about 8-10 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Heat oil in a skillet and stir-fry garlic and ginger for a couple of minutes.

1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon hot bean sauce
1 teaspoon hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water

Mix and add to skillet. Bring to boil and stir until thickened. Add eggplant and cook 2 minutes.

Green onion slices
Cilantro
Sesame oil

Garnish with green onion or cilantro. Sprinkle with a little sesame oil.

Thai Pork and Tofu Stir Fry

My stir frying is getting better, bit by bit. Again I used the largest skillet we have instead of the wok because of our stupid smooth-topped stove. The skillet allows for much more surface contact with the stove. However, the skillet is well-seasoned, but not as perfectly as the wok, so unfortunately I think I use more oil with it than I would with a wok. The larger base makes for more oil, too. But it's still a better option for getting a hot, hot pan and maneuvering it on and off the heat.

This was not a super-official recipe, just a combination of a Mai Pham recipe and things from a few other Thai cookbooks.

I marinated some pork chunks in lime juice, fish sauce, and lime zest. I used rib meat but removed most of the fat.

I sliced the tofu, sprayed it with olive oil cooking spray, and baked the pieces at 400 for about 15 minutes, then sprinkled it with a little shoyu. I could have stir-fried it, too, but I wanted that toasty dryness it gets from being baked -- I thought that would soak up the stir-fry flavors better.

I heated peanut oil until it smoked and stir-fried the pork, then removed it.

I then stir-fried a Vidalia onion cut into rings, several Thai and one Japanese eggplant from the garden, assorted fresh red garden chiles of varying degrees of heat, one clove of garlic, and about 1/2 cup of Thai basil. (I prepped all this beforehand, of course.)

I added half a standard package of rice noodles, which had been soaking in hot water for half an hour before I drained them and gave them a minute or two to dry. Those noodles really, really wanted to stick to the skillet, but I added a little more oil and stirred well. Not letting up here was important: those noodles have to be chewy, chewy, chewy or there's no point in stir-frying rice noodles.

Toward the end I added the pork and tofu, poured in a sauce made of fish sauce, shoyu, and sugar, and tossed in another 1/2 cup of Thai basil. Because it wasn't picante enough, I added some dried red pepper flakes, too.

It was delicious, but it can be much better. I'll keep working.

Frustrating Marinated Eggplant

I'd like a better marinated eggplant recipe, please. This one called for minced garlic, fresh basil, salt, and wine vinegar layered with fried eggplant slices. I brushed eggplant chunks with olive oil and roasted them instead, but otherwise followed the recipe, and I wasn't thrilled. It should have improved over several days but was actually best on day 1. After that, the basil was ugly and brown and the garlic oddly sharp. Suggestions are welcome.

Two Holiday Breakfasts

All these holiday food posts are just now trickling in as I sort through photos and return to normal life. Here are two breakfasts I wish I could eat every week, but instead end up eating about once a year.

On Christmas we intended to have huevos rancheros, but we never got around to making salsa, so we had French toast instead. I used the rest of the Italian bread I'd made for Christmas Eve dinner with Lawson's family. The recipe was pretty standard -- just milk, eggs, vanilla, and a little sugar, sauteed in butter -- but since the bread was so substantial I was able to soak it for a while -- about half an hour to get it really full of flavor.

Unlike pancakes, which I like with yogurt, jam, peanut butter, and various combinations thereof, French toast requires syrup and butter. So maybe it's good I don't eat it too often.

We had huevos rancheros the day after Christmas. Lawson made the salsa, which was pretty impressive for containing winter grocery store tomatoes. I believe he used cherry tomatoes, black beans, lime juice, cilantro, a can of Herdez salsa verde, an an onion. The Anasazi beans cooked on low for almost two days in the crockpot, so they were outstanding. I fried the tortillas and the eggs in olive oil.

Food as Religion Again

Now I’m into the good part of Christmas: making food for gifts. Had I been a Wise Man, I would have brought the Christ Child lemon curd or homemade salsa. Tonight I’m making pear chutney, and I have my marmalade and lemon curd recipes at the ready.

Which brings me to the topic of today’s discussion—my recipe card file was getting really messy and I failed to find both my pear chutney and eggplant salad recipes on the first go. I sorted them, archived some of them (put in a more deeply buried file), and even threw some away. In doing so, I came across James Peyton’s recipe for green chile enchilada sauce. I had written it out for my card file for convenience, but I had forgotten to make those particular enchiladas for several months. Well! I had the same religious experience as last year about this time, involving love, longing, intense nostalgia, and activation of the saliva glands. We’re going to have them tomorrow. Silly, since we live in Arizona and can have enchiladas any day we want. Maybe this is how Norwegians feel about lutefisk, and is why some people are Lutherans. I really don't know.

Here is the eggplant salad recipe. It’s the one pictured on our masthead. Very flexible and wonderful.

Roasted Eggplant Relish

1 large eggplant (peeled if desired), or several small ones
Salt
Olive oil

Cut the eggplant into ½-inch cubes. Toss with 1 teaspoon salt. Place in colander to drain for 30 to 60 minutes. Rinse lightly, drain, pat dry. (I sometimes skip this step if I’m lazy).

Place the eggplant cubes on a large rimmed baking sheet and toss with 1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil. Roast at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until tender and the edges are touched with brown.

Now you can do anything with these tasty little morsels. You can eat them as is, like a pig, standing at the kitchen counter. You can put them in a pasta sauce. My favorite way is to make them into this relish that’s halfway between a salad and a condiment. You can make this very simple with just a little parsley and tomato, or you can make it rich and complex with olives and chiles.

Chopped tomatoes
Parsley, cilantro, basil, dill, and/or other fresh chopped herbs
Minced red onion, or sliced green onions
Ripe or green olives if desired
Finely minced jalapeno, optional, or powdered cayenne or crushed red pepper
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 clove garlic, minced
Juice of 1 lemon
1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Mix gently. Serve at room temperature.

The Cooking Process

I started out with the intention of making ratatouille tonight, because of having eggplant and other ingredients on hand, but after cookbook browsing and back-and-forth with Dad, I ended up with an Indian eggplant/potato/chickpea stew. I served it over brown rice, and it was quite okay, but the condiments were better: cilantro chutney, pear chutney, and a cherry tomato raita.

We used cherry tomatoes and cilantro freely from the garden, because it might freeze tonight.

Raw and Roasted Summer Pasta

Oh, this was so good. I made a raw tomato sauce out of:

- 10 medium and small ripe garden tomatoes, seeded and chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3/4 cup of fresh basil, chopped
- a few tablespoons olive oil
- salt and pepper

I combined all that and let it blend for about an hour on the counter. Meanwhile, I tossed together:

- 1 zucchini, cubed
- 2 small Japanese eggplant, cubed
- olive oil
- salt

I put all that on a baking sheet and roasted it at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Then I boiled some gemelli and tossed everything together with:

- 1 ball fresh mozzarella, cubed
- grated Parmesan

It tasted like summer. We ate a lot of it with some really cheap and fairly crummy Merlot. It even made the wine taste good.

Thai Stir-Fried Okra, Eggplant, and Tomatoes

Lawson is much better with the wok than I am, so he usually does the stir-frying around here. He's fun to watch. As you can see here, he moves at superhero speed.

He roasted the eggplant first to soften it -- without precooking, it seems to stay tough and soak up too much oil. He then stir-fried onions, okra, the roasted eggplant, and tomato in some chile-garlic-basil paste he made last year. A little fish sauce, chicken broth, and fresh Thai basil finished it. We served it over plain white rice.

The chile-garlic-basil paste is based on this amazing product we found at the local Asian market a few years ago: Por Kwan brand sweet chile basil paste. It consists of basil leaves, garlic, fresh chiles, salt, and oil. The Por Kwan is almost as good as Lawson's garden-sourced reproduction.

Return to Vegetables

On the kitchen counter waiting for me when I returned from my DC trip was this tableau:
As you can see, we have a variety of eggplant types, some tomatoes, some okra, some yellow squash, and one dark and enormous zucchini hidden under it all. Last night Lawson roasted eggplant, onions, and zucchini, then made pesto and cooked some rigatoni and tossed it all together. It was delicious.

Yes, Hot Dogs

We're still trying to use up the leftovers from a party we had several weeks ago, which is why I'm eating hot dogs for dinner. Although the party involved homemade pizza and fresh fruit, it also involved slaw dogs...and people ate all the dogs but left a bunch of leftover buns. So we bought more hot dogs. This was a totally logical thing to do.

Slaw dogs are one of the more bizarre Southern foods I've encountered. I'd heard of them and figured they were just hot dogs topped with coleslaw, until I found myself in a hot dog restaurant near the beach earlier this year and ordered one on a whim. It turns out a slaw dog is a hot dog topped with mustard, meat chili, and coleslaw. And I swear, it's completely delicious. Unreal.



For our home experiments I bought the all-beef, less sketchy hot dogs, and they're good. We have no more chili or coleslaw, so we're eating them plain. These were the last of them, grilled, served plain on whole wheat buns with ketchup and mustard. With them we had sauteed beet greens with garlic (on the left). My favorite thing about buying beets is that you can get two separate vegetable dishes out of one bunch -- the beets one night and the greens another. We also had the first garden eggplant of the year, grilled and tossed with olive oil and garden basil (on the right).

Mom, are you totally horrified that I eat hot dogs now? In my defense, it was probably you who fed me my first hot dog. It was probably cut into small slices with a toothpick in each one.

Back to Morocco

Tonight we had a Moroccan meal: braised and browned lamb, Moroccan bread, and eggplant salad. I could live without the lamb. I braised it first with saffron, turmeric, ginger, paprika and so forth, and after it was tender I removed the bones and gristly parts, reduced the liquid, and browned it in the oven. Once my fingers get coated with lamb fat, I am pretty much finished with the experience, even if I like the flavor.

The bread, however, is something I make again and again. It’s a whole wheat loaf, very little sugar and no fat, with sesame and anise seeds, baked in a flat round. It smells better than any other bread.

And eggplant salad is a discovery. Our family visited Morocco in 1981, to see Aunt Betty and Uncle Mario, who were Peace Corps trainers in Rabat (you were about two years old, I think.) We stayed a week, and it was Ramadan. It was remarkably like the pictures of Iraq we see now on television, without the gunfire—such a desert, not softened by the landscaping we are used to here in Tucson. I was uncomfortable with my first experience of Muslim culture, wearing a caftan and needing to be escorted by one of the younger male cousins when I walked out of the apartment.

Later in the week, after a few days of austerity—no alcohol, that is—we went along with Betty and Mario to an expatriate picnic, and there was food and wine in wonderful abundance. We had many different eggplant dishes, and since everyone was speaking French, I was pleased to know the beautiful word aubergine.

Tonight’s salad, and most other Moroccan things I make, was inspired by Paula Wolfert’s Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, which is worth reading even if you don’t use a single recipe. The foreword notes that Wolfert made the ultimate sacrifice in the research for the book—her gall bladder.

This salad has eggplant cubes roasted with olive oil, fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion, cumin, paprika, lemon juice, and cilantro.