eggplant – Stephfood CLONE

Grilled Eggplant and Haloumi Stacks

This summer was full of grilling, fresh veggies and fresh herbs. One of my favourite dishes made good use of a grillable style of cheese called Haloumi, which holds its shape during grilling and even ends up with adorable grill marks!

Grilling makes everything better. I’m pretty convinced that this is true, and so far I haven’t been challenged on it. Eggplant is one of the easiest things to grill up – it gets tender inside, and full of flavour. I was inspired by the caprese salad stacks I often make in the summer, and decided to come up with a grilled version that featured eggplant.

My introduction to Haloumi made the cheese selection simple. It was a revelation! The cheese melts just a little, and even gets the grill marks, but it doesn’t start to get oozy. You just put it straight on the grill and watch the magic happen. I tried a few different brands that were all delicious, but my favourite came from nearby Upper Canada Cheese Company. Their Guernsey Girl grillable cheese is delicious and salty, and just a little squeaky.

made with Grilled Guernsey Girl cheese from Upper Canada Cheese Company

While the cheese and the eggplant are amazing on their own, I felt they needed something to pull the dish together. I made a topping with diced tomatoes mixed with fresh chopped basil. It’s important to make this a couple of hours before you want to eat, to give the mixture some time to be totally infused with basil.

I made this dish at least a dozen times this summer, and as a result ate waay too much cheese for my own good. Yay!

Grilled Eggplant and Haloumi Stacks

It’s best to choose an eggplant that is longer, rather than wider, with a fairly consistent diameter. This ensures your stacks are roughly the same size.

Ingredients:

4-6 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 small bunch of basil, chopped
pinch of sea salt
freshly ground pepper
1 eggplant, 2 pounds, sliced into 1-inch rounds
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
500g haloumi cheese, or another grillable cheese, sliced 1/2 inch thick

Preparation:

Mix the tomatoes with the basil, salt and pepper in a medium-sized bowl. Set aside. If your tomatoes are too watery (even after seeding), you may need to strain this mixture later on to remove the liquid.
*Lightly* brush both sides of the eggplant slices with olive oil while the grill is preheating.
Grill the eggplant rounds until tender, and grill the haloumi slices until softened and lightly browned on the outside. The haloumi will not melt entirely.
Stack the ingredients as follows: eggplant round, haloumi slice, a teaspoon of the tomato mixture.

Moroccan Eggplant Zaalouk

When in Morocco, we had this fantastic eggplant dip that was quite different from the babaghanoush that we’re used to. Although cold, it was more similar to a hot dish that I enjoy in Indian cuisine… so I thought I would turn it into a hot dish! Perfect for the cool fall weather…

I’ve taken a pretty long break from the blog, covering my busiest time of year at work (where did September go?) and a much needed vacation (where did October go?). During that time, cooking was either a chore or not an option. Thankfully, this has changed.

After a trip to Spain, Morocco and Portugal, I am inspired to cook many new things.

Travel inspires me to cook, for two main reasons. First, the obvious – I get inspired by things I’m eating and smelling, and it gives me the opportunity to explore the culture further after the trip has ended. The second reason I get inspired to cook is, unfortunately, bad touristy food and a lack of vegetables. Whatever the reason, I’m happy to be inspired to cook and blog!

The riad in Fes: Don’t you just want to curl up with a glass of wine and some appetizers?

Back to the Moroccan dip that inspired this post… We were brought to a guest house in the medina in Fes – a mind-boggling maze of a place. The setting was incredible and elaborate, and we were seated on the terrace, with a view of the city. The meal started with a series of cooked dips, which were lovely. I probably could have eaten a whole meal consisting only of dips. The eggplant dip was a highlight for me – cleaner tasting than babaghanoush (no creamy tahini here), and closer to Indian baingan bharta in texture.

I had a thought – what if I served this dish hot?

To make it more of a meal, I have added some green bell pepper and served it on top of rice. It could also be served with crusty bread instead of rice.

This is a really easy dish – and you could even roast the eggplant and tomatoes in advance and cook the dish the next day to save time and make a weeknight-friendly meal. One thing I should note – I didn’t get a big enough eggplant, so it turned out a little more tomatoey than it should have. It still tasted amazing, but I recognize that the dip we had in Fes did not have such a strong tomato flavour.

You can also be flexible with the seasoning, if you like it a little bit spicier or want to add in some Ras el Hanout.

Cold, this is a great dip to bring to a party. Hot, it’s a simple dinner option.

Delicious hot or cold!

Moroccan Eggplant Zaalouk

Based on this recipe. This can be served hot or cold. Traditionally, it is served cold (as a dip), but it made a great hot meal with the addition of green bell pepper and served with bread or rice.

4 servings

Ingredients:

1 eggplant, 2 pounds, halved lengthwise
4 large tomatoes, halved lengthwise
1/4 cup olive oil
1 green bell pepper, chopped (optional – if making dinner, as opposed to a dip)
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro and parsley, mixed
juice from 1/2 lemon

Preparation:

Place eggplant and tomatoes skin-side up, on an oiled roasting pan. Pierce the skins with the tines of a fork. Sprinkle a bit of olive oil on top of the eggplant and tomatoes. Roast in the oven, on the top rack, under the broiler until the skin is a little bit charred, and and the meat is very tender (it took about 10 minutes for me).
While the vegetables are roasting – if you will be serving this as a hot meal – lightly sauté the bell pepper in a little bit of oil. Remove from heat, and set aside.
Scoop out the roasted eggplant from the skin, and peel the skins off of the tomatoes. Mash the eggplant and tomato together. Set aside.
In a deep sauté pan, heat the remainder of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the eggplant and tomato mixture, and stir. Add the remaining ingredients, except for the lemon. Mix well, cover and cook for about 20 minutes, until the mixture is very thick and most of the liquid has been cooked off. Do not let the mixture burn – turn down the heat, if necessary.
Add the green bell peppers and half of the cilantro/parsley to the mixture and heat through.
Add the lemon juice and the rest of the cilantro/parsley.
Serve warm or cold with crusty bread, or on top of rice.

Sichuan Eggplant and Green Beans

To be honest, I think I just needed to make something that included Sichuan Pepeprcorns. I’ve had them for a while, but haven’t really used them. This dish is a bit of a mash-up of a few things, and is full of veggie goodness!

Continue reading Sichuan Eggplant and Green Beans

Ratatouille New Year

What better way to celebrate the birth of a new year than by baking layers of veggies and watching Pixar? For us, the first day of the new year was spent relaxing in jammies, and Ratatouille – the dish and the movie!

This is the first of my New Year’s resolutions to be completed. Continue reading Ratatouille New Year

Delicious Smoked Spicy Eggplant

Spicy Indian Eggplant - close up — Close-up!

It can be really tricky to recreate the things you love from restaurants. If you’re super talented, you might just wing it and make up a recipe. Then there are people like me who just keep trying new recipes, like a sucker, and getting frustrated when it doesn’t turn out right.

Indian eggplant dishes have given me the most frustration.

Continue reading Delicious Smoked Spicy Eggplant

Greeky Pt2 – Eggplant Bundles

This is the first installment of my ‘Cookbook Diving’ series, where I dig up recipes from my lonely little cookbooks. I have a number of cookbooks that I rarely use, especially now that it’s so easy to find recipes on the internet. I thought it was about time I start finding some tasty treasures on my own bookshelf, so here we go!

Earlier, I posted about our Greek themed meal featuring my first attempt at Spanakopita. Since we couldn’t make an entire meal out of spinach pie, I thought I should dig around for some other treats. I decided to make eggplant bundles, stuffed with tomato, herbs and cheese. This recipe is actually from an Italian cookbook, but since many of the ingredients cross over with Greek cuisine, I thought I could modify it to make it work with our meal. I did the obvious, and simply replaced the herbs and the type of cheese used, since they wouldn’t change the basic structure of the dish.

This pic gives you a bit of a peek inside at the tomato… sneaky little food!

These were very simple to make, but some of them didn’t want to stay together when I flipped them on the baking sheet. No worries! It’s pretty easy to just stuff it all back together. I modified the original recipe to coat the bundles with the leftover butter/herb/spinach juice from the spanakopita, which worked really well and added some extra flavour. There was also a sun-dried tomato dressing that was meant to be drizzled on top of the bundles when served, but I just left that off. I don’t think it was missing anything.

After a little bit of digging, I found something new in one of my dusty cookbooks. I wonder what other hidden gems I’ve been sitting on!

Broiled Eggplant Bundles – Greek Style

Serves 4, Modified from an Italian recipe in the book La Cucina Italiana edited by Gabriella Rossi

2 large, long eggplants
1/4 lb feta cheese
2 plum tomatoes
8 sprigs of parsley and/or dill
2 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper

Preparation:

Remove the stalks from the eggplants and cut them lengthwise into thin slices — the aim is to get 16 slices in total (about 1/4 inch thick). Ignore the first & last slices.
Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil an cook the eggplant for a couple of minutes, or until just softened. Drain the sliced eggplant and pat dry using a clean towel. Set aside.
Mash the cheese a little, so there aren’t any big chunks.
Cut each tomato into 8 slices, ignoring the first & last slices.
Take two eggplant slices and place on a baking shet, forming a cross. Place a slice of tomato in the centre of the cross, season with salt & pepper, then add a sprig of parsley and/or dill, followed by a dollop of cheese, a sprinkle of oregano, a slice of tomato and more salt & pepper.
Fold the ends ofthe eggplant slices around the cheese and tomato filling to make a neat bundle. Repeat with the rest of the ingredients to make 8 bundles. Chill the bundles for about 20 minutes.
Preheat the broiler. Brush the bundles with oilive oil and cook for about 5 minutes on each side, or until golden. Serve hot.

My Very Own Thali

I love Indian food. I love the spices, I love the mix of textures and flavours, and I absolutely love the variety you get in an Indian Thali. Indian thalis are platters that feature a number of dishes, alongside some kind of bread (such as naan or chapati) or sometimes rice. Most of the Indian food that people are familiar with are from North India, but it is important to note that there are many regional differences in Indian food. This is something I’d like to learn a little bit about, but I haven’t started researching it yet.

My first Thali (clockwise from the top): Baingan Bharta, Saag Paneer and Chole.

I love to make Indian-inspired dishes at home, but haven’t had much success at making restaurant style dishes until recently. A few weeks ago, I tried a Palak Daal recipe that was fantasic but very lonely. We’re used to having multiple dishes in an Indian meal, so my loney daal didn’t go over as well as it should have. This inspired me to try making a group of dishes at once.

There are two challenges for me here: successfully making restaurant-style Indian dishes AND making multiple dishes at the same time and timing it all out properly. It was a great experience, and left me with the confidence to try more in the future!!

Enjoy!

A mix of the spices I used in one of the dishes.

Recipes after the jump!