Eggplant Caviar

A low-cal, low-carb, low-point appetizerIt's always fun to inaugurate a new cookbook, this time Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen. It's a personal and amusing look into a fellow blogger's kitchen, the charming Clotilde Dusoulier, with both both recipes and photography all her own. It's doing very well -- at this writing, it's the #206 best-selling book on Amazon! Plus last week Clotilde appeared on the Today show!

And if you like A Veggie Venture, thank Clotilde. I'm quite sure that it was her blog, Chocolate & Zucchini and one of a couple of 'famous' blogs then and now, that was my own introduction to food blogging back in 2005.

left to right, Chinese eggplant, Japanese eggplant & Indian eggplantFor this easy appetizer, I experimented with three different kinds of eggplant. Two small-ish globe eggplants (a pound apiece, not pictured) yielded less than a cup of eggplant after roasting and removing the seeds. (What's a globe eggplant? It's the 'standard' eggplant, at least my experience in American supermarkets. They typically weigh a couple of pounds and are elongated but fat, typically four or five or even six inches across the fattest part.)

So then I roasted Chinese eggplants (these are eight to ten inches in length, a couple of inches wide, one is pictured at the far left) and some Japanese eggplants (four or five inches long, about an inch wide, the smaller eggplant in the middle). The Chinese eggplant were perfect -- they yielded a pile of roasted eggplant with few seeds. The Japanese eggplant were just too small, roasting overwhelmed them. The India eggplants (small and round, on the right) I gauged too small for roasting but I'm anxious to see how they turn out in something else. Here's an excellent comparison of the types of eggplant.

NUTRITION NOTES This is a low-cal appetizer, low-point appetizer, even a great low-carb appetizer. Dig in! (Not counting the bread or chips, of course ...)



FROM THE ARCHIVES

Clotilde inspired this asparagus jam ... "good along roast pork or some other rich meat where the sweetness would contrast richness".

The Recipe Box has plenty of appetizer recipes and of course, eggplant recipes.

TWO YEARS AGO Fiddlehead ferns! ... "these were utterly delicious and so very, very pretty! Look at those curlicues!"



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EGGPLANT CAVIAR

Hands-on time: 20 minutes
Time to table: 2 hours or overnight
Makes 2 cups

Olive oil
2 pounds eggplant, preferably Chinese, left whole (Clotilde suggests Italian eggplant which are smaller versions of the globe eggplant, or baby eggplant)
Garlic cloves, halved if large

2 tablespoons olive oil (I skipped this, accidentally)
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (this creates the more pleasing 'dark' color vs the muddy gray of eggplant flesh)
Zest and juice of a lemon
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley (also called Italian parsley, it has way more flavor than the 'curly' parsley that served as 'garnish' on 70s-style plates)
1/4 teaspoon whole cumin seeds, toasted in a drop of olive oil in a small skillet
Salt to taste
Pinch of chile powder

Turn oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with foil and mist with olive oil. Prick the eggplants all over with the tip of a knife. Then cut a slit partway into the fattest part of each eggplant and insert a piece of garlic into each one. Roast for an hour, turning after 20 minutes and 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cut along the length of each eggplant without cutting through skin on the other side. To drain 'excess liquid' from the eggplants, place slit-side down in a colander to cool. Once cool, use a knife to scrape the flesh from each eggplant, discarding the stem and skins.

In a food processor, combine the roasted eggplant with the remaining ingredients and process til smooth. Chill for an hour or overnight. Serve with crostini.



A Veggie Venture is home of the Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg and vegetable inspiration from Asparagus to Zucchini. © Copyright 2007
Alanna Kellogg
Alanna Kellogg

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 21, 2007

    Eggplants are my all time favorite vegetable, and Chocolate and Zucchini was the first food blog I read too. I think I could make eggplant caviar everyday for a month and never repeat a recipe. Umm, love it!

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  2. Both Chocolate & Zucchini and A Veggie Venture are blogs I read before plunging into my own. You set a high standard, Alanna!

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  3. Oh, this looks so good! I am a huge eggplant fan. Indian eggplants are made for stuffing IMHO :)

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  4. AnonymousMay 22, 2007

    Alanna - we loved aubergine so much that when E comes along very soon we will repeat with Eggplants.
    Freddie is about to try out dandelions tonight - wish him luck.
    Hope you are well....
    Yours
    Charlotte and Freddie
    Great Big Veg Challenge

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  5. Helpful that you experimented with some different types of eggplant. I'm a big fan of eggplant and this looks excellent.

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  6. That's one cool recipe... I have put up an egg plant recipe here

    www.flowergirlrecipe.blogspot.com

    post your comments too

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  7. Eggplant is one of my favorite vegetables; when it makes it appearance at the farmers' market, I but every variety they have (which adds up to a lot!). This will be an exciting one to try.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

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Thank you for taking a moment to write! I read each and every comment, for each and every recipe, whether a current recipe or a long-ago favorite. If you have a specific question, it's nearly always answered quick-quick. ~ Alanna