Seeking eggplant recipe ideas, as I have one limp eggplant in the fridge and 8 eggplants growing in hydroponics (which may produce a massive amount of eggplant).
So far my repertoire includes 2 dishes:
Eggplant Parmesan (Italian)
Eggplant in Garlic Sauce (Chinese)
(the family hates eggplant, except me, so we never eat it 🤔 )
I do a lazy version of this. I dice up the eggplant and sprinkle it with garlic, onion powder, paprika, and parsley flakes first, then roast in the oven about half an hour. They're not so soggy that way.
I've made this so many times that I've lost count. It used to be my favorite thing to take to parties. It's a Julia Child/Simone Beck recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, v.2. I wrote it up a long time ago & added glosses & pointers.
@ai6yr The hardest thing is making sure the eggplant is cooked enough.
Also, every once in a while, an eggplant will just have very little flavor. It's the only recipe I've ever seen by Julia Child where she recommends MSG if the flavor isn't quite as much as you think it should be.
It's also a nice recipe to turn into a garlic bomb. 😆
@ai6yr - Make it a dip/topping. May not tell about the eggplant.
Skin, cube (1") and salt for 1h, then rinse off the salt and toss the brine. Saute with olive oil in a shallow pot until a little browned. Pour in 1-2C two buck chuck or similar cheap red (merlot or cab sauv) and 1 can diced tomatoes. Simmer until soft and most of the liquid is gone. Press in 2-5 fresh garlic cloves. Mash and serve. Spread for toast is best. Possibly with cheese.
@ai6yr BBQ/Grilled eggplant with sesame or honey mustard, Korean BBQ Eggplant, Eggplant casserole (you need canned artichoke hearts and bell peppers to go with it). Gads, I wish I was your neighbor! I’m the only one in this house that eats eggplant.
@ai6yr eggplant is one of our gotos. Lots of good suggestions above in other comments.
Yuxiang eggplant is one of our Chinese favs -- more kick than just garlic sauce.
Of course, all the Italian style eggplant bakes: lasagna, parm, slice, grill, put on pizza.
All the middle-eastern preps. Bana ganoush is a winner.
This is a clever eggplant dish that happens to be plant-based (I use dried beans that we grow instead of lentils. Cause then it's even more home grown) https://www.seriouseats.com/roasted-eggplant-tahini-pine-nut-lentil-vegan-experience-recipe
@ai6yr baba ganoush. middle eastern cuisine is full of eggplants. ;) or just oven bake them, smeared with some olive oil and oregano and put them in a sandwich.
@ai6yr Ratatouille, for which you’ll need some zucchini & summer squash, maybe worth a trade with a gardening friendly neighbor (I know about those plastic lawn & shrubbery neighbors 👀).
@wendinoakland I think there may be one other person with a garden of any sort in this area, LOL. More farther away, but not in my corner of the world. There's a whole neighborhood nearby which is ONLY plastic grass and swimming pools, which I think is terrible.
@ai6yr Very weird. People are so confusing. Meanwhile my teeny backyard has two meyer lemon trees, a satsuma orange, a smol, productive granny smith apple tree, a huuuuge fig and a raised box with tomatoes, and a fennel patch for butterflies. 🌱🌿🍋🍏
@ai6yr@wendinoakland This reminds me of folks who are car-centrist, fight all cycle infrastructure, live in gigantic suburbs, but travel to Europe to visit places that are lovely because they were developed before cars and suburbs, are easy to walk & cycle in without getting killed, with loads of small businesses all clustered in walking range...
The things they're fighting would get them closer to their own ideal of what looks beautiful...
@meganL@wendinoakland Yep, precisely. The "car centric" upraising is extremely strong here in Southern California. Folks just are so used to driving everywhere, they drive to a shopping mall which is a replica of Europe (no bikes or skateboard allowed!) to not have to worry about being hit by a car walking "downtown". It's so bizarre, to me.
@ai6yr@wendinoakland I recently moved from Oakland to Sacramento, and it’s quite the change. Almost no one in North Oakland/Berkeley has a lawn, almost everyone here has a huge one
We do seem to have a lot of people gardening though, and a lot of fruit trees
@scm@ai6yr@wendinoakland My cousin in Oakland stuggles mightily to garden. (Developer built a 5-story building on their south side, completely blocking the sun.) And yeah, not a bit of turf in his yard.
We (in Sacto) have about 2,000 sq ft of lawn remaining. Hoping to replace it with a pollinator garden in June, after which we'll be turf-free (and garden-heavy!)
@jimv@ai6yr@wendinoakland my new place is like all lawn, I still haven’t figured out what to do about it. The back lawn is Bermuda grass, which is an extra pain to get rid of, but I thought I’d start by not watering it this summer. The front is going to take some more thought
When the soil is very dry, we cut the grass as short as the mower would go. Then used a string trimmer to cut everything down to bare soil. CLEAN THOROGHLY, everything you cut is potetially viable. Then we top dressed the soil with about 4-6" of good compost. DON'T work this into the soil, let the worms handle it. (continues)
@scm@ai6yr@wendinoakland We topped the compost with about 6" of wood chips(1). You can start planting in this right away, but the soil is gonna be like concrete initially. Plant stuff that you won't cry over if it dies.
We started planting our (bare root) fruit trees that winter, about 6 months after compost. We spent those 6 months pulling bermuda grass, a couple hours every weekend.
We did one more laborious weeding the first spring. (cont)
@scm@ai6yr@wendinoakland The bermuda grass (BG) has gotten easier to manage every year. We sarted on this project in 2019. NGL, the first ~18 months were a lot of hard work. But the last couple years we've only spent a few hours rooting out the little bit of BG that's come up.
Note(1): https://getchipdrop.com/ can be a good source of woodchips. Ideally contact them late spring/early summer. But better to flag down a tree service in your neighborhood.
@ai6yr What kind of eggplant? Globe, Japanese, Chinese? I oven roast globe eggplants to make Punjabi Baingan Bhartha (which I saw at Trader Joe’s but have not tried). Basically you add the mashed innards to a curried tomato sauce made from scratch and eat with roti/chapathi or naan. It’s kind of like baba ghanoush but not a cold dip. If interested I can write out a recipe.
@ai6yr BAINGAN BHARTHA
Prick washed globe eggplants with fork so they don’t explode, wrap in foil, broil on high in oven until they are easily pierced by a fork & the skin is charred, can take 1 to 1 1/2 hours depending on size of eggplants and proximity to broiler. You can also roast them on a grill/bbq outdoors. After they are cooked let them cool off so they can be handled. I then cut the top off and slice each one in half, scooping out the cooked insides and removing the peel.
You can use a masher or a knife to break up larger parts, or you can use a masher at the end of the cooking process once the eggplant is added to the tadka (masala sauce). Most Punjabi dishes start with the following base, with tweaks to amounts of ingredients based on what is being cooked. Many dishes like meat curries, palak/paneer, bhartha. etc taste better on the second day (or later in the day) as the meat or paneer or eggplant soaks up all the flavors.
For 4 large globe egg plants.
TADKA (masala sauce)
◦ 3 large or 4 medium red onions, slice in half and then slice lengthwise
◦ 1 or 2 green jalapenos, sliced in rounds or diced
◦ 10 to 15 cloves fresh garlic, peeled, minced
◦ 1 inch long fresh ginger piece, peeled, minced (many people omit this)
◦ 6 medium size vine ripe juicy tomatoes, chopped (campari are also a good choice)
◦ 1 bunch fresh cilantro, washed, de-stemmed
◦ 1 to 2 tbsp cooking oil or ghee
◦ 1 to 2 tsp cumin seeds
◦ 1 to 2 tsp salt
Place in a mini food processor/chopper: garlic, ginger, jalapeños. Pulse until finely diced. And add to the prep plate of sliced onions.
In the same emptied processor (no need to rinse), chop/puree fresh cilantro (twist off the woody stems, wash the rest and squeeze out water), throw in mini processor and add tomato wedges to make a cilantro/tomato sauce.
Put a large pan on the stove on medium low heat, after it is warm a bit, add the oil or ghee, bring to medium heat and add cumin seeds which will start to splutter and brown.
Add above onion/garlic/ginger/jalapeno mix and the salt. (Salt will draw the water out from the onions, helping you brown/caramelize them faster and better). After browned, add the spices, stirring and cooking further a minute or two. Then add the pureed tomatoes + cilantro and cook until the mixture thickens, darkens and becomes more like a gravy. Then add the mashed eggplant and cook maybe 20 minutes further on low. If anyone has Qs I will answer later.
For the slimmer eggplants I usually make a sliced eggplant/potato Punjabi dish for my parents or sometimes masala stuffed baby eggplants cooked in a similar base . I really only like eggplant in bhartha or Thai sliced basil eggplant over rice but I don’t cook that one. For the single eggplant you could just slice in rounds, rub with preferred spices (garlic salt, pepper, etc) and simply sauté in a pan until crispy/caramelized.
The reason for the extra eggplant in hydroponics is (theoretically), they will be diversionary eggplants for the squirrels, who decimate peppers but prefer to get high on eggplant leaves. (h/t @BakerRL75 for the idea, I believe). So may also have ZERO eggplants. #eggplant#gardening
Also eggplant can be stuffed with various other things you enjoy.
I, too, would like to know about the squirrels. My husband has a bird/squirrel feeder attached to his office window. There could be entertainment potential there.
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