“A stiff attitude is one of the phenomena of rigor mortis. ” Henry S. Haskins
Food attitudes are among the most unshakable aspects of humankind. Sushi is one of the most scintillating taste thrills for millions of people and an almost equal number cannot abide the thought of raw fish. I know a man whose attitude toward eggplant is intractable: He hates it. This gorgeous purple vegetation has been introduced in various guises and disguises to this person for almost 20 years.
Eureka, I have finally found a form in which the lovely aubergine (the French name for this vegetable, adopted by the English) is acceptable even to those odd eaters who find its elusive flavor insupportable in any other form. Baba Ganoojh, a smooth elixir of pureed roasted eggplant, is from Turkish cuisine (as are many other eggplant dishes; the eggplant is to the Near-East cookery as the tomato to the Italians). But recipes for this earthy yet elegant and voluptuous vegetable go back far into ancient Persian and Chinese cuisines. Eggplant grows in warm climates and is present in cuisines as far flung as Brazil and Lebanon. The Indians dote on their “hrinjals” and the Japanese their “nabu-naga nasu."
Not a Favorite Here
There are exotic and pleasant sounding names for this fruit of the tomato-potato family practically all over the civilized world, yet it has never been a great favorite in the United States. For example, how often does one find it on menus except in Greek restaurants? I think the American indifference to this obligingly variable vegetable which can be roasted, stuffed, baked, steamed, or fried, is directly connected to the flat, unpoetic name “eggplant” we have bestowed on it.
Eggplant come in white, small egg or round form, in long, thin blue-black shape, and in the plump, elongated egg shape of our familiar deep-royal purple-black models. They all taste pretty much the same as long as they are fresh, firm, and shiny. (Claudia Roden, the empress of Middle-Eastern cookery, calls its flavor “exciting and vulgarly seductive.”) Never buy old eggplant, which shows its age by a dullish complexion and softness with a few dull patches
Eggplant seems to be available the year around nowadays, but is more than usually plentiful during the last warm days of September. There is one finicky technique that precedes the preparation of nearly all eggplant dishes: It should be slashed lightly, salted, and drained for about an hour to rid it of excess juices. This also prevents it from blotting up prodigious amounts of oil when it is cooked, as it generally is, in olive oil.
Baba Ganoojh
This dish, frequently and puzzlingly referred to in Middle Eastern cookbooks as a “salad,” has a unique, smoky taste and silky texture. Baba Ganoojh fits into an American scheme of eating as an appetizer dip to eat with slips of endive or small triangles of pita bread and, to mix cultures madly, is delicious with tortilla chips. I have given a recipe that served 50 in a previous “Larder” so here is a scaled-down version. It keeps well, tightly covered and refrigerated, for up to a week.
Serves ten.
1 medium-sized eggplant (about 1 1/4 lbs.)
Salt
Olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. tahini (sesame seed paste)
Juice of one large lemon
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. finely minced parsley
Imported Greek olives for garnish
Wash and dry the eggplant and cut it in half lengthwise. Slash it lightly and sprinkle with a little coarse salt. Leave to macerate for an hour. Squeeze and blot dry with paper towels. Lave the cut surfaces with olive oil. Broil under medium flame first the cut side then the skin side, until the eggplant is tender when pierced with a kitchen fork. Remove, cool slightly, and scrape the flesh from the skin with a large metal spoon.
Spin the garlic cloves in a food processor with the teaspoon of salt, then add the eggplant flesh, the tahini, lemon juice, and cumin. Puree until smooth and taste for seasoning. Sometimes I add a little raciness to the puree with a dash of cayenne pepper, though this is not strictly authentic. Put the puree into a shallow bowl and decorate the perimeter with the minced parsley and olives, or serve olives on the side.
Eggplant Pie
Though obviously I have to think about food a great deal, I am not given to dreaming about it. Nevertheless, this recipe did come to me in a recent early morning dream and I got right up and made it. It turned out to be sort of a quiche and is delicious, though my dreaming turns out to be not startlingly original. As a test, I made a small pie with a frozen crust; however, the pie would be much more dramatic in a large ten or 12-inch Pyrex dish. Double the ingredients for that.
Serves four.
1 8-inch prebaked pie shell
1/2 medium regular eggplant (about 8 oz.)
Salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium-large onion, sliced thinly
2 “ex-large” eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream plus 2 Tbsp. milk
1 Tbsp. fresh marjoram, minced OR 1 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. dried red pepper flakes
Bake the pie shell only to pale gold and let it cool. Cut the eggplant into half-inch-thick slices, sprinkle with salt, and weight with a heavy china plate for half an hour. (Weighting speeds up the juice extraction.) Drain and dry the slices, pressing them gently with paper towels. Heat the oil with the garlic in a large skillet and add the eggplant slices. Turning them several times, saute until tender, about five minutes. Remove and arrange on the baked pie shell. Add a little more oil and saute the onion until tender. Arrange the onion over the eggplant.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Beat the eggs together with the cream and milk, herb, and red pepper flakes. Pour this over the contents of the pie plate. Bake on the middle rack of the oven until firm and pale gold, about 25 minutes. Cool five or ten minutes before slicing to give the custard time to settle. This is equally good to eat at room temperature, but do not refrigerate or the crust becomes soggy. If you want to make several pies in advance, leave them at room temperature and reheat them in a microwave or in the oven at 350 degrees for a short period.
The next time I make this pie I will add some halved, stoned Greek (calamata) olives to the top before baking it. Some roasted red or yellow sweet peppers layered onto the onions would also be a tasty notion. If you prefer a more custardy pie, add more cream and another egg or two.
