Travelling to Turkey this summer, I fell in love with the eggplant.
Usually purple, eggplants come in a variety of shapes and sizes – large globes, long cylinders, small eggs. They like hot climates and are in-season here in Salmon Arm from August through to October.
Eggplants have a unique taste and texture and how it is prepared will make or break your relationship to it. Done well, eggplant makes a luxurious entrée that will cause you to pause a moment with admiration; undercooked it can taste bitter, spongy and disappointing.
In Turkish cuisine, there is a famous eggplant dish called Imam Bayildi, which translates to “the Priest Fainted” – some say from the joy of eating the dish; others, due to the cost of all the olive oil used in the dish (in fact, I almost fainted when I saw the recipe).
Part of the reason eggplant can be so delicious is its ability to absorb a lot of oil while cooking. However, there are other lower-fat delicious ways to eat eggplant: grilled and topped with a garlic yogurt sauce, baked stuffed with ground meat and vegetables, roasted to a pulp and mixed with a variety of ingredients into a dip.
Eggplants contain trace amounts of most vitamins and minerals and its skin is rich in cancer-fighting phytochemicals. When purchasing an eggplant, it should feel heavy and have shiny skin free of cuts or bruises. Eggplants are quite delicate and perishable, and ideally should be used soon after picking.
Before cooking, most recipes will ask you to soak the sliced eggplant in salted water or to salt the surface and wipe it after 20 minutes. This removes any bitterness and apparently decreases the amount of fat it will absorb. Eggplants need a long cooking time – usually an hour if baking or roasting or 10 minutes per side if frying or barbecuing. If it tastes spongy, it is undercooked.
Here is a simple Turkish-style recipe to try at home:
Cut eggplant in half. Place cut side down on a generously olive-oiled baking pan. Prick skin with a fork in a few places. Roast at 450F for 45 to 60 minutes or until skin is blackened and pulp collapses (alternately, grill on barbecue for about 20 minutes, turning occasionally). Let it cool.
Scrape out eggplant pulp into a bowl. Add juice of one-half a lemon, one clove of garlic, and one tbsp each of olive oil and plain yogurt (or adjust ratios to your liking).
Blend together and season with salt, pepper and parsley. Traditionally, this dip is served at room temperature with bread.
