Along with the massive amounts of citrus Matt brought up from his parents' yard a couple of weekends ago, he included a bag of Japanese eggplant (smaller diameter than what you normally see). We decided to use it for this week's wednesday night dinner so Megan did some recipe hunting. The menu ended up being eggplant with hoisin sauce, egg rolls, and pasta and veggie stir fry. I finally opened the mandolin slicer I bought at the KA sale ages ago for the eggplant (Mo and Justin had fun).
The stir fry was delicious but the eggplant may be counted as our first failure. The sauce was excellent but the skin was tough and no one was super excited about eggplant in general (it's apparently better for us to bury it in sauce and coat it in breading (our eggplant parmesan was so good)).
4 comments:
Oh bummer about the eggplant! I personally vastly prefer the Asian variety to the European. Also, I found an awesome Near Eastern recipe for something or other where the eggplant cooks down and basically becomes the gravy for the rest of the ingredients. I'll see if I can find the name of it. At the very least, it's a cool cooking technique to know about.
I don't have much experience with eggplant so can't really compare the two varieties. It's possible that the ones we used this week were past their date a bit. We also baked instead of grilled (my grill is under a couple of feet of snow right now). I'd love to know more about your Near Eastern recipe if you can track it down. I'm sure we'll be getting more eggplant opportunities in the future.
OK, I finally looked up the recipe. It's from my 1976 Better Homes and Gardens Crockery Cooker Cook Book. I think you'd be able to transform it for bulk cooking very easily. (And omit the beef for the veggies.)
Eastern Beef and Eggplant
1 small eggplant, peeled and cubed
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram, crushed
1/8 teaspoon group cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups cubed cooked beef
In crockery cooker stir together the eggplant, tomato sauce, celery, onion, green pepper, salt, marjoram, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cover; cook on low-heat setting for 8 to 10 hours. Turn cooker to high-heat setting; stir in cubed beef. Cover; heat through, 30 to 45 minutes. Makes 5 or 6 servings.
mmm, that sounds delicious. I will definitely be suggesting it the next time Matt brings up eggplant. Thanks for digging it out!
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