[Sca-cooks] Eggplant

[Michael Gunter]

>I've also had some success with halved, roasted eggplant (the way you 
>normally roast them for any of several presentations, shredding them with  
>two forks like pulled barbecued pork -- easy to avoid seeds that way), 
>tossed in a hot pan with sliced garlic, good olive oil, Kosher salt, 
>excessive amounts of coarse black pepper, cooked pappardelle pasta or 
>fettucine,  shredded flat parsley, and shavings of parmigiano. This is my 
>contribution to the "eggplant dishes for people that don't like eggplant" 
>chapter...

Sounds tasty. I've been a big hater of eggplant for years as well. Although
I'm getting better. I've found a couple of Middle Eastern places that
serve magnificant eggplant. The way I discovered this was to go to a
very good place in Dallas who has a lunch buffet and make the decision
to try everything they put out, no matter how icky it seemed. I found
that I loved the eggplant, go fig. I've also had success with slicing it 
very
thin, breading it and deep-frying it then serving it over spaghetti with
maranara sauce.

I don't know if I mentioned this but I've done a couple of stints at a
Farmer's Market as a guest chef/presenter. Basically I show up with some
condiments and necessaries like olive oil, spices, etc.. and then the
vendors give me stuff to cook and hand out samples to the crowd as
well as give instructions on how to cook some of the more exotic offerings.

I'll tell the story of how I had to be creative when all I got for a day was
a bunch of beet greens, one head of broccolli, one head of garlic and a
BUNCH of baby bok choy. That was an adventure.

But at one of these I got several baby eggplant. One of the things I did
was just serve some raw. They were actually crunchy and a little sweet.
Kind of like a cucumber. People were surprised.

The other thing I did was salt them, grill them and then stirfry the 
eggplant
with other grilled veggies and tomatoes into a sort of rattatoulle. The 
eggplant
was only slightly cooked so it didn't get that slimy texture.


But I can understand how Master A feels. I can't take okra or beets in any
form.

>Adamantius

Yers,

Gunthar

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