High Summer
Back in the city, and none too soon. It’s late summer, and the produce in Union Square sits up and begs to be eaten. This is my favourite market season – perhaps because I was first overwhelmed by the greenmarket this time last year, perhaps because I’ve never seen the market in July. But right now, I swear, the market is perfect, a million stabs of Van Gogh colour, tomatoes and eggplants and peppers against a backdrop of greens so deep as to be black, shaded and made delicate by the flush of peaches, the bashful translucencies of baby greens and squash blossoms.
One superstar chef, Boulud, I think, said that in his first two years in the kitchen, he learned to tell a good carrot from a bad one. He was slow.1 A good carrot, a good tomato, a good anything, knows it’s good and screams to be cooked, or crunched, or chunked and christened with salt and oil. A good eggplant even sounds perfect when you cut it, a delicate rasp – you can hear the juiciness, the micro-spray as the blade passes. It sounds like cutting freshness.
I hadn’t actually thought to make this entry about eggplants – they somehow aren’t as spectacular as tomatoes, or peppers, though they’re part of the same family (There are actually eggplants which are shades of orange and are shaped like tomatoes – these are a different species from the more common purple ones).2 They seem stable, constant performers, mildly flavoured, a near perfect vehicle for aromatics in oil, lending body and cream to a dish rather than imprinting it with a distinct identity, as their more vividly coloured relatives do. But ripe eggplants feel heavy with the promise of sweetness and satisfaction, and fit a certain way in your palm. Their skins are coloured indigo and milk, and shades you see in the dawn sky. They do have a distinct season, which we are in the middle of – and Diana and I had a craving, and things you can crave tend to be worth writing about.
Eggplants come from Asia and Africa (McGee makes a specific claim for India), and show their tropical roots by going bad quickly in the fridge, as the cold collapses the delicate sponge inside them. They arrived in Europe via the usual route (Arabia, through trade and war) in the 13th Century, and are the only edible nightshades which come from the old world. Since then, asian and western strains have become distinctly different on the plate, the former smoother and creamier, the latter having a little more structure, frequently described as meaty. Their uniquely spongy texture gives them a near insatiable thirst for oil, though the cook is by no means obliged to give in to this. The Joy suggests precooking by a variety of methods, my mother, as in the recipe below, has had success simply searing them. For this reason, however, eggplant dishes can be inordinately rich – a famous Arab recipe, imam bayildi, involves stuffing eggplants with onions and baking them in an overgenerous quantity of olive oil. The name means “the imam fainted,” allegedly after his wife told him how much oil had gone into the dish. A highly attractive recipe, along with an extended discussion of the origins of both dish and name, may be found at this excellent website.
I suggest further going here to see some of the orange eggplants I mentioned, and here for an altogether too earnest description of some of the varieties available in Japan.
I like eggplants which I can cup in my hand. Larger eggplants tend to be older, and eggplants grow bitter with age. Forget any that don’t feel heavy. Surface blemishes tend not to matter, especially on western eggplants, which have substantially thicker skins than asian ones. At home, we char eggplants in a wok, and flavour them emphatically, with chili and black bean sauce. The result is very like an eggplant caviar, and, if you scorch the eggplants right, will have some of the smokiness you usually need a charcoal fire to achieve. This recipe works with both Asian and Western eggplants – the former will give you something a little like custard, a little like rhubarb preserve, and a lot more appealing than this sounds. The latter will give you eggplant caviar with distinct chunks, pleasantly resistant until they melt away.
1) I’m being facetious. Just wanted to make that absolutely clear.
2) Etymology also hints at the nightshade link – Italian for eggplant is melanzana – apple of madness.
Serves four, with rice.
Eggplants. Several.
Either dried szechuan chillies, or fresh habanero or Thai bird’s eye. Three will be plenty.
An onion, white or red according to your preference, and a clove of garlic for each eggplant, and one more for the pan.
Black bean and garlic sauce, available in Chinatown, of course, but also in many ethnic food aisles.
A very large fistful of basil.
You need a decent pan, and to have no fear.
1) Cube the eggplants, 1 to 1 1/2”.
2) Heat a large, heavy pan on medium heat. When it is very hot, pour in barely enough oil to coat it, then scorch the eggplant, all over, in batches to avoid crowding. Don’t disturb the eggplant too much. Don’t add more oil. Don’t be afraid if the eggplant is sticking. Don’t add more oil. Remember, you want it to be somewhat charred.
3) While you wait, smash and peel the garlic, chop roughly. Dice the onion, 1/2”. Carefully cut the chili – I suggest kitchen scissors, over a bowl. You can control the heat, somewhat, by making the pieces bigger or smaller.
4) Once all the eggplant has been charred, transfer it to a bowl. Deglaze the pan with water, scraping up the browned bits, and let this reduce almost to a syrup. Pour this liquid into another bowl. Wipe the pan out, and add fresh oil.
5) Sweat the onion over low to medium heat. Once it starts to brown at the edges, add the garlic and chili. When they turn fragrant, throw in the eggplant, crank the heat, and sauté. Season very lightly (black bean sauce is salty, chili is hot).
6) Once stuff starts sticking to the pan again, turn the heat very low, and deglaze again, using the liquid from the first deglazing. Cover and let it stew a while. Tear up the basil while you wait.
7) Uncover the pan, add a tablespoon or so of black bean sauce, and mix, inflicting violence upon the eggplant. Taste, correct the seasonings, throw in the basil, serve.