Thursday, December 13, 2007

In which I burnt the eggplant

So, I had half an eggplant (asian) left over from a previous meal.
What do I do? Do I use the rest of it in another sambar? No, had to thrive almost exclusively on sambar all of last week.
Do, I make a marinate it in some spices and shallow fry? Fry? Now we're talking.
I looked up some recipes for grilled eggplants, realised the eggplant they have in mind is the gargantuan kind and almost abandoned the idea. Then figured, nothing grilled or shallow fried can taste bad and went ahead with it.
So, I cut the eggplant into thin slices and dipped, dunked, marinated them in this concoction: some olive oil (little more than a tablespoon. This time around I used the a a tablespoon measure), less than a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, a dash of italian seasoning (or the more haute thyme, rosemary etc if you stock them), a dash of salt and pepper and finally some finely chopped garlic, may be 2 cloves.

I whisk the mixture, but really the nature of the ingredients do not lend itself to whisking, so I shook 'em around hoping they would blend.

I then dunk the slices of eggplant into the concoction. Let them sit may be for 5 minutes.

I heat the skillet, spray some Pam and when the skillet is hot, add a few slices.
Let them sit for a minute or two and then flip 'em.


Now I have may 15 scrawny pieces of grilled/shallow fried eggplant. No amount of geometric arrangement will make 'em pretty.

And then it hits me. Why not make a hot-cold salad, by adding some cheese and tomatoes.

So I reach for the half cut tomato and some mozzarella cheese balls (bocconcini, I think) from the murky depths of my fridge and chop them up-the tomatoes into round slices and the cheese balls into halves.

I then arrange the eggplant slices around the edges of the plate followed by tomatoes and then finally the cheese scattered haphazardly on the tomatoes.

I drizzle some olive oil, balsamic,add some salt, pepper and italian seasoning to the tomatoes and cheese, and hey presto, I have my very own salad!

Might proud to say the least.

I'd like to say the final product looked like this (courtesy, Jupiter images):





But, it looked more like this.







But for all I know it tasted even better.

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