Grilled Eggplant Dressed with Garlicky Walnuts and Lots of Basil by Alison Roman

Eggplant, I’ve learned, is polarizing. Its flavor, its texture, and even its shape seem to draw out strong responses from people. Whether you love it or hate it, you feel strongly about the camp you’re in. Which is funny to me, because personally I’m in the middle. I didn’t grow up with eggplant – I’m not even sure if I’d heard of it till college. But my school’s cafeteria didn’t do the vegetables any justice. It wasn’t until making my own ratatouille that I was presented with eggplant in an edible, non-soggy and flavorless form. That experience turned me on to eggplant. I realized its potential for providing an almost creamy element to recipes, when cooked correctly. Alison sure loves a creamy eggplant, and has since exposed me to several other ways to eat it, particularly the oil-roasted method. Which I think I prefer to grilled eggplant. 

Grilled eggplant, though it looked pretty, didn’t prove to be the best eating experience. I found that the skin became tougher and hard to chew. I found myself scraping the flesh out with my fork, which was far less appetizing. 

The flavor of this recipe… well, there wasn’t a whole lot of it. In my opinion, Alison’s signature move is in-your-face flavor. But this recipe lacked boldness. The toasted walnuts with garlic and pepper flakes were nice but not strong. The basil added some obviously herbal notes, but it didn’t transform anything. Salt and pepper didn’t carry enough weight to make this stand out. And in fact, only two of the four of us ended up eating any of it. I brought my leftovers home, and a week later, they’re still sitting in my fridge, untouched. 

All that to say, I’m still squarely in the middle when it comes to eggplant. I really like the oven-roasted kind, but I’m out for soggy or grilled eggplant. I don’t care how tiny and cute the eggplant might be, the recipe needs to have decisive flavor. Do you have eggplant standards, too? I’d love to know! 

119 recipes cooked, 106 to go.

Fried Eggplant with Harissa and Dill by Alison Roman

I made seven Alison Roman recipes last week. All of them, except one, were very good. But for whatever reason, this eggplant dish is the one I can’t stop thinking about! 

Through this project, I’ve grown to really like eggplant, which is saying something considering where I started. I used to shutter at the soggy appearance of cooked eggplant in the cafeteria, and wondered how anyone could want to eat it instead of the always-available pizza and salad bar. I now realize that my college cafeteria, as exemplary for the circumstances as it was, did not treat eggplant with the care and flavors that it is due. 

I started to appreciate eggplant for all its creamy and flavor-soaking qualities when I first made Alison’s Long-Roasted Eggplant with Garlic, Labne, and Tiny Chile Croutons. There especially I learned how well eggplant goes with spice. Which is exactly what this fried eggplant recipe does so nicely. 

The eggplant is sliced into ½-inch rounds and fried in a boat load of olive oil (I probably used 1½ cups when all was said and done). The eggplant gets a nice toasted surface and soaks in all the yummy oil. It took about 20 minutes to fry it, since I could only fit so many rounds in my large skillet. Once the frying is complete, the pan is removed from heat and filled with a spicy sauce made of water, harissa paste, red pepper flakes, tomato paste, and vinegar. The sauce immediately bubbles in the pan, inviting the eggplant back into the skillet for tossing. Though 2 tbsp. of harissa and a teaspoon of red pepper flakes are used, the spiciness was quite tolerable and the heat more acidic than dry. The creamy eggplant played well with the tangy spices. Finally, the whole plate is topped with dill and flaky salt. 

I made this dish for dinner on a night when my brother-in-law was coming over. I could see his polite skepticism as soon as I brought out the plate. He reached for only two pieces and began eating the rest of his meal. But after a few bites, I could tell he had changed his mind. He and Jordan both helped to finish off the eggplant, which I count as a real victory. The leftover oily juices also made a lovely dipping spread for sourdough bread. 

70 recipes cooked, 155 to go.

Long-Roasted Eggplant with Garlic, Labne, and Tiny Chile Croutons by Alison Roman

If you follow Alison Roman, you know that her latest recipe, Eggplant Parmesan, is making some serious waves on the Internet. Ironically, I had already planned to make another one of her eggplant recipes on the day that her Parm became the latest “It” dish. I could chalk this up to coincidence, but I want to believe that I’m slowly being elevated to her culinary zeitgeist. 

Either way, eggplants are clearly the vegetable of this cultural moment, and I’m not one bit mad about it. 

My only prior experience cooking with eggplant is a poor man’s ratatouille. This long-roasted eggplant is most definitely a step up. More importantly, this recipe let eggplant be the star of the show. 

There are three elements that make this a dynamic dish: 

1. Eggplants cut in half and roasted cut-side down in a pool of olive oil. Alison instructs you to cut a few ½-inch slits into the meat of the eggplant before turning it over, presumably to help steam escape and ensure a more crystallized surface. Well, it worked. The eggplant was perfectly roasted, with a subtly crunchy exterior and endlessly creamy interior. If anything, this recipe made me believe that eggplant doesn’t need to just be a soggy, anonymous contributor to pad thai. (You know what I’m talking about, right? How many times have you had a veggie Pad Thai and someone asked - “what do we think this is?” referring to an unknown limpy brownish- yellow blob in the noodles, and you say, “maybe it’s eggplant?”) (Just me? Cool.) … 

2. Chile & garlic croutons, oh baby these were fantastic. Similar to Alison’s breadcrumb approach, torn pieces of fresh bread are toasted in olive oil in a skillet, but this time, she adds finely chopped garlic and a thinly sliced red chile to the mix. This added the right amount of heat to balance out the milky meat of the eggplants. Plus, I will always love the texture of a fresh crouton, no matter what it’s paired with. 

3. Labne with preserved lemon. I’ve still yet to purchase labne, and, I likely never will. Cow’s dairy does a number on my body, and I’m very satisfied with the Greek yogurt/sour cream/labne alternative of Goat’s milk yogurt. I mixed the yogurt with salt, pepper, lemon juice and quick-preserved lemon, and then spooned it over the bottom of the serving bowls. This tangy sauce is the base for the eggplant. 

Never before would I have said that I’d serve eggplant at a dinner party. This recipe changed my mind. I would absolutely serve this as a main course with a side of grains or roasted broccolini. 

Cheers to more eggplants in my future! A future, until now, I would never have imagined. 

28 recipes cooked, 197 to go.