Delicious Eggplant Sandwich with French Cheese (and a Secret Spicy Ingredient)

I've said it once, will say it again and again: eggplants are such a challenging veggie to work and cook with. From the preparation until the matching, everything that has to do with it looks for me as a very challenging task. However, as in many challenges I have to deal with in my life, the answer is not to give up and to keep trying, experimenting and learning how to be a better cook, one recipe at a time.

I was not sure what exactly I want from this eggplant, therefore, I began in the classical way, by frying it on the open stove. It goes relatively fast, you only need to pay attention to turn the eggplant every couple of minutes, to burn equally on all sides.

Ingredients

1 medium-sized eggplant
4 cloves garlic, finelly chopped
3 tablespoon olive oil for the frying pan, plus 1 teaspoon for the finishing
50 gr. butter melted
1 tablespoon za'atar (I got from a Middle Eastern friend a big quantity of za'atar from Syria, which is like no other za'atar I ever had before and I am glad I can keep testing its qualities in different recipes)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
50 gr. Parmesan, as garnish

Directions

When the eggplant is cooked on all sides, peel it and mash it slowly.

Meanwhile, in a frying pan at 250C, add the olive oil, the garlic, melt the butter, add the za'atar. Mix it well for a couple of minutes. Add the eggplant and the lemon juice and keep mixing it for another couple of minutes.

Pour the content in a bowl, add some extra olive oil and mix slowly. Add

Prepare the toast and spread one layer of French cheese - actually any kind of soft cheese works, including Gorgonzola which is a bit spicy and hard but might interact perfectly with the eggplant - and a generous spread of eggplant.

The final result is a rich, fulfilling and also healthy meal which can be savoured as a part of the dinner. Recommended to be served warm, as it melts deliciously with the cheese.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves: 3

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Baked Eggplant with Cheddar Cheese

My and eggplant...we have a very complicated story between us, but I keep doing it as much as I can, especially when my hungry imagination is ready to add some spices that may challenge my first (bad) impression about it. 

This time, I wanted to test my new Zwilling, a present from a dear friend, and decided that, among other things that I am planning to prepare, eggplant is the easiest, affordable one. Especially when some spices, courtesy of Spice Kitchen UK, part of their Brand Ambassador Program are added. The result was surprisingly tasty, rich in flavors and made it into a good side dish for a milky-/cheese-based meal. I will only add some fresh cucumber and tomato salad, for a touch of freshness and call it a good meal! 

Ingredients

- 1 medium-sized eggplant
- 3 cloves garlic, finelly minced
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Fenugreek
- 1/2 teaspoon Berbere which are a combination of many spices, such as red chilli, garlic, black peppercorns, cardamom, onion. It also has fenugreek, but I personally wanted a stronger presence of this spice, therefore I added it as a separate ingredient too.
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 2 slices of Cheddar Cheese - you can also use Edamer Cheese and any other hard cheese variant.

Directions

Roast the eggplant on the stove at 250C, turning it on all sides at least for 45 minutes. Peel it well, careful to clean all the black parts. Slice it and put it into the baking pan. Warm the oven at 250C, at least 10 minutes before starting the baking. Add the lemon zest, the salt, the spices, the garlic. Be sure that you turn the eggplant on both sides to smear the ingredients properly. Add the cheese on the top.

Bake it for around 45 minutes. 

Serve it warm. The spices and the lemon zest add a complex, sweet-sour taste and consistency to the eggplant. 

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: Roasting: 45 minutes. Baking: 45 minutes

Serves: 2

Bon Appétit!

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Experiencing with Eggplant

Eggplant is one of those vegetables which are prepared in my house every couple of months but no more than once the year. It is my way to say that, in fact, I don't like eggplant as much and if not for some books which make everything simple and tasty, I would not want to deal with it at all. In fact, not long ago, there were years since I was tasting any bit of eggplant. Trying new recipes and putting my tastebuds on trial is an interesting experience anyway, therefore after a couple of weeks of thinking I decided to finally use that eggplant languishing in my fridge.

For one hour, I tried to combine one moderately sized eggplant with different tastes and ingredients. The results were satisfactory, but it was more burned smell than necessary. Not sure if I would try anything soon - maybe, finally some Babaganoush one day - as for now, I am just gathering various experiences about this mysterious and not always easy going vegetable.

Here is my short cooking story:

I started by washing the eggplant and cutting the head. Next, I've sliced it into thin rounds, allowing a fast and efficient frying. I heated 3 tablespoons olive oil in the pan at 250 for 5 minutes prior to the frying. 

I tried to use different ingredients for each batch of eggplants. I fried 3 of them at once, allowing enough space to absorb the oil. In one case, I only added a pinch of sea salt. In another I added some Osem soup seasoning. In another I added some small slice on yellow cheese on the top. Black or Cayenne pepper are also good solutions. 

From the pan, I set the eggplant slices to rest on some absorbing paper to take the oil excess out. 

As side dips, my choice was relatively simple: some plain fresh yogourt and a very spicey soy sauce. 

Despite the smoke smell, it was a relatively easy dish, with a variety of tastes. I had them in a simple way, without anything else but fresh cherry tomatoes and some avocado. 

A great meal for a lazy evening at home after a full day of work, whose creation requests a bit of imagination and taste creativity.

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Cookbook Recommendation: Totally Eggplant, by Helene Siegel

I do have a rather tragic personal relationship with eggplants. Although at home we used to have regularly fried eggplant often turned into baba ganoush - the only way our nanny knew to prepare it - I never been a big fan of it therefore my interest to this veggie - actually according to some opinions, it is considered a fruit, following the same school of thought which includes tomato in the same category - was limited to observing the long process of preparing it on the stove. But when once I wanted to have a taste of eggplant in a restaurant, it happened that the product was slightly overdue therefore I caught an allergy that was about to cost my precious life. Since then - it happened over 10 years ago - I only tried to do my own recipe only once and the results were just fine, but nothing to make me want to go early in the morning out of the house and buy eggplants for a challenging food tasting and testing. 

I would love to change this situation though, therefore my search for sources of inspiration convincing me to include it in my regular menu. Totally Eggplant by Helene Siegel is a very good beginning in this respect. It includes very easy recipes, for a meal shared with guests, with a very fast preparation time.

It helps the reader - especially the non-experienced one - that it is 'a vegetable of many possibilities not only grilling'. Instead of frying, it offers the healthier and quicker option of roasting, in combination with many interesting ingredients and spices. The most challenging part of the recipes is that you usually need minimum 5 ingredients, because its original taste is quite diverse and matches a large variety of additions, such as curry, miso, onions and garlic, meat, vinaigrette, fish. For instance, one of the recipes I would love to test is: couscous with eggplant and pine nuts (which includes cumin, parsley, cinnamon and onion). Polenta eggplant lasagne sounds good too. Most of the recipes recommend though the new star of the European farmers' markets: the Japanese eggplant, which can be also produced in Spain, corkscrew shaped, longer and thinnier, milder and less bitter than the original variant we are familiar with. The book also has some short historical snaphots, explaining the origin of that product of the earth considered by the 16th century Ottomans as 'the Lord of the vegetables': probably brought to America by African slaves along with okra, watermelon or black eye peas.

Totally Eggplant is an enjoyable read, with a lot of tasty inspiration. Can't wait to get in the right mood to try some recipes, hopefully soon. 

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