Spaghetti with Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Sauce

I am stuffing my gut to the fullest with a mid-afternoon snack of spaghetti with roasted eggplant and tomato sauce, but I am taking a break (to give my stomach time to stretch and expand to the newly arrived food) to let you know how I made it.


I know, I made an eggplant recipe again. Surprise surprise.


Ingredients:


For sauce:

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cans (28-ounce) whole, peeled tomatoes, drained (I didn't drain them, and ended up with a shitload of sauce--next time I still wouldn't drain them, but would use 1 28 oz can and one 14.5 oz can) (oh and another note--as opposed to the 10 minutes simmering time that the recipe called for, I simmered the sauce for at least 45 minutes while dealing with the eggplant--if I were going with the shorter simmering time, I would probably drain the juice because there wouldn't be enough time for the water to cook off)
• Handful fresh basil leaves, torn
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For eggplant:

• 2 small (3/4 pound) eggplants, stemmed but not peeled, sliced 1/2" thick (I used a little over a pound of eggplant. I didn't use the skinny ones so I quartered them lengthwise and then sliced them)
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Extra-virgin olive oil

For miscellaneous:

• 1 pound dried spaghetti
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, stemmed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino, plus extra for serving
• Handful fresh basil leaves, torn

By the way, this isn't all the ingredients. I decided the other ingredients weren't sufficiently photogenic.

Mince 5 garlic cloves (I used 4 because my bulb was becoming very bald) and finely chop 1 onion.

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil over medium heat.  Add in onion/garlic and saute until soft and translucent but not browned, about 7 minutes.

Crush tomatoes with your hand in a large bowl.  Add the tomatoes and juices to the garlic/onion.  

Bring to boil, then lower heat to simmer.  The recipe says to simmer for 10 minutes, but as with most tomato sauce recipes, I let the sauce simmer while I'm doing other things, about 45 minutes.

While the sauce is simmering, prep the eggplant.  Preheat oven to 425 and grease 2 baking sheets.

Cut the eggplant into 1/2" slices (I also quartered/halved my eggplants lengthwise because they were much bigger in the girth department than the skinny Asian eggplants I think the recipe wants you to use).

Place sliced eggplant in bowl and toss with a very generous amount of olive oil, chopped garlic, salt and pepper.  I'm not kidding about the olive oil--you don't want them to be dry before going into the oven. That will lead to sadness.

Lay out in single layer on greased baking sheets.

Roast for about 20 minutes, rotating pans from top to bottom and front to back, and flipping eggplant pieces halfway through.  You want the eggplant to be tender.  I actually ended up lowering the heat in my oven because they were going to "burnt" stage pretty quickly.  Also, for the last 5 minutes, I added the cherry tomatoes, halved.

Cook your pasta, shaving off 1-2 minutes.  Drain pasta and add to pasta sauce, tossing to coat. Cook for 1 minute, or until pasta get to consistency that you like.

Toss in eggplant, tomatoes, Pecorino, and basil leaves.

Toss well and serve, topping each serving with a little extra basil and/or pecorino, if you wish.

Ta-da!

Eggplant Stir Fry

Oh Monday.

I was mortified this past weekend when, while shopping at the farmers' market, someone informed me that Rikki was trying to eat tomatoes out of the bins that were under the tables. I almost died. She also kept going after the same piece of dessicated okra, even though on each try she spit it out as inedible. So stupid.

Anyway, back to my boring life of cooking.  Eggplant is so bountiful and beautiful at the farmers' markets right now, and so meaty, that I can't pass up the opportunity to cook with it before it goes AWOL.  So here's another eggplant recipe, even though *some* people have indicated me that they neither enjoy eggplant nor vegetables.  You know who you are.

Since I just made an Italian-style eggplant dish, I wanted to do something different this time around.  I looked through some of my cookbooks and eventually found an intriguing recipe in The Best Recipe by Cook's Illustrated--Sauteed Eggplant with Garlic Sauce.  


Seeing as how I want this to provide some leftovers for lunch for me and Kevin, I bulked up the recipe by adding sliced onion, which I absolutely adore in stir-frys as long as it's not overcooked, and some peppers (they happened to have some at the market). But you could add whatever kind of vegetable or protein that you wanted.


Here are the ingredients for the original recipe with my additions/revisions in italics.


Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs eggplant, ends trimmed and cut into 3/4 inch cubes (I used little itty bitty eggplants)
• 1 TBS kosher salt
• 2 TBS peanut or vegetable oil (basically you're looking for an oil with a high smoking point, so I used safflower, having neither peanut nor vegetable--olive oil has a lower smoking point, but I don't think this dish will be a disaster if you use olive oil as long as you don't turn the heat too high for too long)
• 2 medium cubanelle peppers (also called Anaheim peppers), cut into 1/4 inch by 2 inch strips (you could also use bell peppers)
• 1 medium onion, halved and sliced
• 1 medium garlic clove, minced (2 cloves)
• 2 tsp minced ginger (about 2 1/2 tsp)
• 2 TBS soy sauce (3 TBS)
• 2 TBS rice wine vinegar (3 TBS)
• 1 tsp sugar (about 1 1/2 tsp)
• 2 TBS minced cilantro leaves (this turned out to be too much for me and I didn't use it all)
• 2 TBS thinly sliced scallions/green onions (meh, a touch more)

Serves 4 (about 6 servings)

I made this recipe over a couple of days because I was already making another dish on the day that I started.  I prepped the ingredients on Day 1 and did all the cooking on Day 2. You can do this dish in one night, but I'm going to list out what I did in parts.

Day 1

Okay my pretties let's chop and slice.

First, cut the eggplant.  The recipe says to chop them into 3/4 inch dice. I cut the little eggplants in half crosswise, then halved them lengthwise, to create long...prisms, if you will.  Cut up the eggplant however you like, but try to keep the thickness to 3/4 inch or less, otherwise it will be very difficult to saute and cook the eggplant all the way through. 

Place the eggplant into a colander and sprinkle with the 1 TBS salt.  Toss, and let sit for 30 minutes. This is to draw out the excess moisture so that when you cook the eggplant in oil, it cooks more quickly and doesn't absorb as much oil. Or something like that. I was tempted to just go ahead and cook it without the salting step, but I was doing this recipe over a few days so I decided why not.  

After the 30 minutes, rinse with water, squeeze with paper or cotton towel to remove excess moisture.  At this point I put them in a Tupperware to store until the next day to cook.

Prep your other ingredients.  Mince your garlic and ginger. 

Mince/slice cilantro and green onions.

Slice the onion and Anaheim peppers.  I find few greater pleasures than slicing onions.   I love the sound, feel, and ease of it.  Oh I wax poetic.  Store all your ingredients in the fridge.


Day 2

Mix together soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and sugar.

Heat the 2 TBS oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat.  Throw in the eggplant and cook, stirring frequently, for about 4 minutes.  Lower heat to medium-low, and continue cooking until brown and cooked through, about 10-15 minutes.

At this point the recipe moved onto the garlic-ginger and the soy sauce mixture, but I had the onions and peppers, remember? Okay so after the eggplant was cooked, I removed it from the pan.  I added a few extra tsp of oil to the pan, turned the heat back up to med-high, and threw in the onion.  

I sauteed the onion for about 2 minutes, then threw in the peppers.  Lower the heat to medium or so and cook for another couple of minutes, until you get the texture you desire. I tend to like everything crunchy, so I tried not to overdo it.

Put the eggplant back into the skillet.  Now we return to our originally scheduled programming (i.e. the Cook's Illustrated recipe).  Toss in the garlic/ginger and stir for about 1 minute.

Then pour in the soy sauce mixture and cook for about 1 minute more.

Take skillet off heat and mix in the green onions and cilantro to taste.  As I mentioned, 2 TBS of cilantro was a bit much for me so I cut back.

Serve on top of rice.  Why not.

Yes, that's my shadow looming ominously over the bowl of eggplant.  Come to me eggplant.

Ta-da!

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

About a year ago I heard about an eggplant parmesan dish from the good folks at Martha Stewart--what appealed to me about this recipe was that the eggplant was baked instead of fried.  It's not so much health reasons as it is the idea of not having to stand over a skillet filled with spattering oil and painstakingly tending to eggplant rounds that just want to spit hot oil at my eyes.


So, baked eggplant parmesan it was.  And it was pretty good.  I always meant to make it again, but it fell by the wayside and then eggplant went out of season, and so on.  The eggplant is going strong at the farmers' markets right now, so the recipe came to mind and I once again got to enjoy the pleasure of baking eggplant.


You will need:

• Olive oil, for baking sheets
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup plain dry breadcrumbs
• 3/4 cup finely grated Parmesan, plus 2 tablespoons for topping
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil (i didn't have this, oh well)
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 2 large eggplants (2 1/2 pounds total), peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch rounds (I used eggplants that were smaller than the prevalent gargantuan ones, and bought 4 of those--whatever just as long as you get to about 2.5 lbs, but I guess I didn't need to tell you that)
• 6 cups Chunky Tomato Sauce
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella (I bought a 1 lb boulder of fresh mozzarella and grated off the right amount)

Serves 8, which as AWESOME because we had leftovers for most the rest of the week.


For the tomato sauce, you need:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cans whole tomatoes, (28 ounces each) (I got the kind with basil, which I won't do next time because it seemed saltier to me, which I suppose I could confirm by looking at the nutrition label but oh well)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• Salt and pepper

First, make the tomato sauce.

Heat up the 1 TBS olive oil over medium heat and add the diced onion and minced garlic.  Cook until soft, about 5 minutes.  Crush the tomatoes with your hands in a separate bowl and add to the onion/garlic (I suppose you could also buy 28-oz cans of crushed tomatoes).  Also throw in the oregano, salt and pepper.  Bring to boil, then lower heat and simmer for at least 15 minutes.  As with most tomato sauces, I simmered this as long as possible (i.e. while I was prepping the other ingredients), about 35 to 40 minutes.

While your tomato sauce is simmering away, prep the eggplant.  Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Oil two baking sheets.

In a shallow dish, mix together the eggs with 2 TBS of water (using a fork is fine).  I added a touch of salt and pepper, but not too much because the breadcrumb mixture has Parm, salt and pepper.  I ruined the surprise.

In a separate shallow dish, combine the breadcrumbs, 3/4 cup grated Parm, dried herbs, salt and pepper.

Slice your eggplant into 1/4 inch slices. The recipe calls for peeling the eggplant but I wasn't up for it.

Dip each eggplant slice in the egg mixture first...

...then in the breadcrumbs...

...and place on your oiled baking sheets.

Cook about 20 to 25 minutes (until golden brown on the bottom), the flip the slices over, rotate sheets and move from top to bottom and vice versa, and cook for another 20-25 minutes.  I started with 22 minutes on one side, and discovered that my oven is not only uneven but strongly uneven--the bottoms of the slices on the lower rack got uber uber brown (although luckily not burnt, at least this time).  So after the flip, I only cooked for about 17 minutes. Whatever works in your oven is fine.

Yeah, see? Uneven.

Now comes the layering of the tomato sauce, eggplant and mozzarella. Spread 2 cups of sauce over the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking pan.  Top with a layer of eggplant.

Cover with 2 cups of sauce.  Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the mozzarella over the top.

Top with remainder of eggplant slices, remaining 2 cups of sauce, and mozzarella.

Sprinkle the 2 TBS of Parm, and bake for 15-20 minutes.

After baking, let stand for at least 5 minutes before serving.

As a side, I cooked some leftover ditalini pasta that I had (you could use anything) and tossed with a olive oil/garlic sauce.  For that sauce, just heat about 2 TBS and 1 TBS butter in a saucepan.  Throw in a clove of sliced garlic and a pinch of dried pepper flakes.  Cook pasta according to directions on package, drain and toss in sauce.  Mix in some grated parm, salt, pepper and chopped parsley.  I went easy on the parm, salt and pepper for the pasta because the eggplant was loaded with seasoning and the pasta was meant to be a neutral balance.

Ta-da!