Eggplant Joy!

This diet food is pretty darned good. Actually, the scheme to lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks is forcing me to go so far as to cook new things, rather than plodding through my usual mealtime sleepwalk.

I found an elegant little eggplant at Sprouts the other day. Determined to eat it before it turned to mildew in the fridge, I broke it out yesterday. Check out the result:

It turned out amazingly delicious, with a rich, tangy flavor that I didn’t expect. Here’s how to make it, or something like it:

Get your hands on the following ingredients, more or less:

• 1 eggplant
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• a few edible fresh tomatoes (I use Campari tomatoes, the only ones in our markets that have a flavor)
• some fresh whole mushrooms
• bell pepper (the “sweet mini” variety that comes in bags is perfect)
• fresh or dried herbs, or a combination (I had marjoram, parsley, & rosemary in the garden; added some fines herbes)
• small handful of pine nuts, if you have some
• small can low-salt tomato sauce
• feta or Parmesan cheese
• olive oil
• wine (I used red, but think white wine would be good and sherry or Madeira might also be very nice)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Slice the eggplant lengthwise into thick slices. If necessary to fit your baking dish, cut these into smaller pieces.

If you’re not trying to avoid salt, you can sprinkle the slices with salt and set them on an oven rack placed over the sink. Let them sit about an hour and then wipe off the exuded moisture and salt with a paper towel. The slices should be dry before proceeding.

This salting procedure leaches out the bitterness you sometimes find in eggplant, particularly older, tougher eggplants. It’s unnecessary with younger fruits, so if you’re doing a low-salt diet, you should avoid older eggplants and leave out this step. No harm was done when I declined to salt the pieces of my small, tender aubergine.

Next, coarsely chop some onion. I used about half of a large onion — estimate how much you need according to taste and amount of eggplant.

Skim the bottom of a frying pan with a little olive oil and sauté the onion gently, over medium heat, until it’s translucent and just starting to brown. Add the pine nuts, if you’re using them.

Meanwhile, wash the ’shrooms and trim off the bottom of the stem (leave the mushrooms themselves whole); chop the garlic, and cut the fresh tomatoes into about 1-inch chunks. Slice the bell pepper into attractive, bite-size pieces. Chop any fresh herbs you intend to use.

As the onion cooks, add remaining items one at a time. First put in the mushrooms — if they soak up too much of the olive oil, add a little more, but if you wait for a few minutes after starting the onions, they should be OK without added oil. Stir these around and go on about your business for a few more minutes. Then add the garlic and herbs.

Stir the simmering ingredients around and let cook for another couple of minutes. Shortly, add the pepper slices. Stir; allow to cook until the pepper softens a bit. As this is happening, add the wine.

Now let this simmer for at least eight or ten minutes. The idea is to get the ’shrooms to soak up wine, which makes them amazingly good to eat.

While the mixture is simmering, spread the eggplant slices on the bottom of an oven-proof baking dish. Ideally, they should be one layer, but you can fish-scale them as necessary. You’ll want the sauce to completely cover the eggplant.

Eventually, stir the can of tomato sauce into the simmered veggie/wine mixture. Spoon the resulting sauce over the eggplant slices and, if desired, sprinkle feta or Parmesan over the top. If you’re really serious about low sodium or you’re a strict vegan, skip the topping! But…I find it impossible to contemplate eggplant, onions, garlic, and tomato without some sort of cheese over it. So, yes: the serpent tempted me and I did eat.

Place this lovely concoction into a 350-degree oven and cook, uncovered, about 40 minutes, give or take.

With a little salad on the side, it makes a yummy dinner that will fill you up.

¡Buen provecho!

🙂