Last year I wrote about my newly found love of eggplant, and making eggplant “meatballs.” If you missed that column, I’ll recap super fast: Vegetarian eggplant “meatballs” are delicious, and moved this usually purple vegetable way up in my veggie preferences.
This recipe is still a favorite. Into the food processor goes chopped roasted eggplant, two or three cloves minced garlic, 10 fresh basil leaves, oregano leaves, Italian seasoning and any other herbs, salt and pepper, ¾ cup bread crumbs, an egg white and two tablespoons or so grated parmesan cheese.
After blending, form the mix into balls and bake or cook in pasta sauce on the stovetop. These are great with pasta, of course, or as a side dish or even as a snack.
This year, I keep buying eggplant. Every week they’ve been in season I add several to my customizable CSA with the intention of making a couple batches of eggplant balls – one to eat and one to freeze to enjoy when this beautiful but brief season is over.
With the first batch I bought, I had a change of plans and instead made a batch of babaganoush and fresh pita. I told myself I’d make the eggplant balls next week.
The next week came, and I made another batch of pita and babaganoush. The recipe was so easy — I cut a couple eggplant in half lengthwise and roasted them in the oven. Once totally soft, I scooped the insides into the trusty food processor, leaving the skins (they might be fine to include, and I’ll probably leave them on in the next batch I make).
To the eggplant, I added lemon juice or sumac powder, a garlic clove or two, salt and tahini (sesame seed butter). A quick zap in the food processor, addition of a little salt or other ingredients to get the perfect taste balance, and the dip was ready.
The pita was also pretty simple — just a basic bread dough with a bit of extra olive oil, let it rise before rolling into circles — I like medium size. Cook up in a hot cast iron skillet, flipping after the first side browns and puffs.
This combo is perfect for a snack or light lunch, garnished with feta cheese, onion, sweet peppers and/or other veggies, to make a great sandwich.
If I can ever bring myself to stop making babaganoush I plan to use the remaining season’s eggplants not only for “meatballs” but also to try to recreate a Russian recipe my family made in the past — faux caviar.
Tasting nothing like fish eggs, this tasty cracker topping can be made by charring then roasting the eggplant, along with onions and/or peppers before pureeing the soft veggies with herbs. This seems like a recipe that can’t go wrong, and would be fun to perfect.
While looking up versions of eggplant “caviar” I found another tidbit of info. Eggplants contain nicotine. But don’t strike it from your dinner menu — you’d have to eat over 20 pounds of this veggie (actually, technically it’s a fruit) to get the same amount of nicotine as from smoking a single cigarette.
I know I can’t be physically addicted to eggplants, but my tastebuds are definitely craving every morsel I can get. If I can break my instant gratification habit of making babaganoush maybe I can still make some eggplant balls to savor when fresh eggplants are no longer available.
