“Often called 'poor man's meat' and, in one form, 'poor man's caviar,' the eggplant is one of the staple foods of the Middle East. It is extremely versatile." — Claudia Roden, “A Book of Middle Eastern Food”
Although Thomas Jefferson introduced this native of India to the Colonies, it has hardly caught on as a staple in this country. (Sometimes I wonder just what vegetables we’d be limited to if it hadn’t been for Mr. Jefferson’s insatiable curiosity about food and foreign plant life.) Too bad, too, as it is cheap and plentiful all year-round. Right now the local examples should be exploited to the fullest. Eggplant is a marvelous food for vegetarians as it lends itself to an incredible variety of preparations.
Eggplant can be round or egg-shaped or long and slender as in the Japanese variety. It can be red, yellow, or white in addition to its commonest, and I think most attractive, color, dark purple. Look for smooth, shiny eggplants that are heavy for their size. (Eggplants that have been picked too long have blemishes, and because they have started to lose moisture, are lightweight for their size.) If not to be used at once, it should be refrigerated for up to four days.
To salt or not to salt eggplant is a constant cookbook direction that I have resolved in this way: Salting, draining half an hour, then pressing it dry between paper towels is useful if the vegetable is to be fried or sauteed in oil because eggplant can absorb a catastrophic amount of oil if this salting and drying is omitted. The other reason for salting is to draw out the supposed “bitter juices.” Unless you buy old, outsized, and seedy eggplants, you’re not going to have any “bitter juices,” so this step is unnecessary for baked or braised recipes.
Eggplants Stuffed With Rice
This is a typical Middle Eastern-style dish, though less complicated than many of the delicious stuffed vegetables — called dolma — beloved by Turks, Greeks, and all the members of the former Ottoman Empire. This serves six as a main course or 12 as a first course.
6 medium-sized eggplants
Stuffing:
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 large tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 Tbsp. shredded basil
2 Tbsp. minced parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/3 cup pine nuts, lightly fried
3 Tbsp. olive oil
Juice of one lemon
Wash, dry, and halve the eggplants lengthwise. Hollow out the centers, leaving a thick boat of eggplant at least one-inch thick to be filled. Discard the excess.
Mix together all the stuffing ingredients with your hands and then stuff the eggplant halves, mounding up the filling in the center. Arrange the stuffed vegetables in a shallow baking dish into which you have poured the olive oil and squeeze the lemon juice over the stuffing. Cover loosely with foil and bake in the center of a preheated 325-degree oven for about 45 minutes, or until the eggplant flesh is very tender.
Variation: Saute half-a-pound of ground lamb or beef and add it to the stuffing incredients.
