eggplant – Flavors of Diaspora

Simplifying is Good: Eggplant with Leeks and Pomegranate

Sometimes it pays off to simplify a recipe.

My elegant aunt Dalia was visiting from Israel over the holidays, and she gave me a special Rosh HaShanah copy of the Israeli cooking magazine Al HaShulkhan (“At the Table”). I opened it to a beautiful picture of an eggplant covered in leeks and pomegranate seeds, and immediately said, “I am making this.” I showed the recipe to my roommate Alex – who said “that looks beautiful but … complicated.”

Indeed, Alex was right. The original recipe was not actually complicated in technique, but in serving. A whole roasted eggplant carefully stuffed with leeks and pomegranate is lovely to look at, but a lot of work to serve and eat. So I decided to simplify matters by chopping the eggplant like a salad – thus putting the work on the cook, and not the end line consumer. The end result was as beautiful as it was delicious.

Eggplant, leeks, and pomegranates all have long Jewish histories stretching back to the Ancient Near East. I’ve discussed each in prior posts. The combination may seem a tad unorthodox, but trust me: this salad is delicious.

Eggplant with Leeks and Pomegranate

Based on a recipe by Erez Golko and Shlomi Navon in “Al HaShulkhan,” September 2017 (in Hebrew)

4 medium-sized eggplants, cut in half lengthwise

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 medium-sized leeks, washed, diced, and washed again

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Seeds of one pomegranate

1 fistful fresh parsley, chopped

Salt, ground black pepper, and lemon juice to taste

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C.
Spread the eggplants apart on a cookie sheet, with the cut side facing up. Drizzle the vegetable oil over the eggplant.
Roast the eggplant for 40-50 minutes, or until the outside is browned and the eggplants are soft to the fork. Remove the eggplants from the oven and let them cool.
While the eggplant is cooling, heat a pan. Add the oil, and then add the leeks. Saute the leeks for 5-7 minutes, or until the leeks have softened and are beginning to brown.
Once the leeks are cooked, add the vinegar and stir rapidly through the leeks. Then, remove the leeks from the heat. Reserve the oil and the vinegar in the pan.
Once the eggplant is cool, remove the peels from the eggplant flesh. Chop the eggplant flesh roughly, then place the flesh in a large bowl.
Pour the leeks, oil, and vinegar over the eggplant.
Add the pomegranate seeds and parsley. Mix everything together.
Season with salt, ground black pepper, and a bit of lemon juice to taste. Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold. The eggplant goes particularly well with bread or rice.

Thank you to Avi Garelick, Madeline Richer, Akiva Lichtenberg, Amram Altzman, and Jamie Weisbach for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.

Eggplant Salad

Recently, I have found myself craving eggplant all the time – and I have perhaps become addicted to the tannic and earthy taste of a vegetable that is actually a giant berry. And so, given my passions and my interests, I have also been researching the Jewish history of this most extraordinary plant. Today, the eggplant is so associated with Israel that it is difficult to believe that eggplants were not, in fact, present during the First and Second Temple period. Rather, the plant is from India – and the word “aubergine” in English and French comes via Arabic and Persian from the Sanskrit vatiga-gamah, which might be related to the word for flatulence. I cannot speak to that effect, but I can say that eggplants reached the Jewish Mediterranean in about the 7^th century CE.

White, five-petaled flower of a wild eggplant, with little green fruit behind. — Flower of a wild eggplant. (Photo Michael Khor/CC-Flickr)

Eggplants have long been a beloved mainstay of Sephardic cooking – and show up in all sorts of pastries, stews, and salads. Folk songs wage a fight between the eggplant and tomato (another newcomer), which were long considered the two favorite vegetables of the Sephardi community. In Morocco, Jews and non-Jews make a pungent and delicious salad called za’alouk with eggplant, as well as a lovely eggplant jam. Moroccan Jews even candy eggplant! Ashkenazi Jews historically only ate eggplant in Hungary and Romania, but developed an attachment to the plant there as well. Eggplants were one of the first foods adopted by settlers in Israel and Palestine in the early 20^th century, and today eggplant might as well be a food group in Israel.

Eggplant pieces — Delicious eggplant, before cooking. (Photo mine, March 2016.)

This salad is a riff on a recipe more typical in Israel today – one often called a “Moroccan” eggplant salad, though it is somewhat different from typical salades cuites. As in North Africa and Turkey, “salad” in Hebrew, or salat, can also refer to small plates of vegetable dishes served at the beginning or as part of a meal. Even in English, the term salatim is now frequently used among Hebrew-speaking Jews. The eggplant used in Israel is smaller and fried more deeply in oil, whereas I have used the larger Mediterranean eggplant. I also have added more garlic, because garlic is delicious. In any case, this eggplant salad – though given that it is cooked I hesitate to say “salad” – is easy, delicious, and goes well with many other dishes.

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Fried Eggplant Salad (Salat Khatzilim Metuganim)

2 small-to-medium eggplants, chopped into 1cm/ 1/3 inch slices (optionally salted)

1 bell pepper, finely chopped

1 chili pepper, finely chopped

6 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tbsp lemon juice

Salt, to taste

Olive or vegetable oil

Heat a wide skillet or pan, then add about 2cm/1 inch of oil. Fry the eggplant in the oil until soft and darkened on both sides, flipping as necessary.
Remove the eggplant with a slotted spoon, leaving the oil in the pan. Set the eggplant aside to cool.
In the same oil, sauté the peppers and garlic until the pepper begins to soften and the garlic is thoroughly browned. Remove, with the oil, from the heat. Set aside to cool.
Mix the leftover oil-garlic-pepper mixture with the lemon juice. Then, pour this “dressing” over the eggplant, and mix well.
Add salt to taste. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Stewed Meatballs with Eggplant and Fruit

Here is a recipe I made for my mother on Mother’s Day. It is similar to the Beef with Eggplant, Dates, and Apricots I made last month for the Pesach of Colors series, but recalls two other dishes from separate Sephardic traditions: the Balkan albondigas, or meatballs with eggplant, and lamb tagine with prunes, a traditional Moroccan-Sephardic meal for Jewish holidays. I kind of made up this recipe on the spot, but will almost certainly make it again. This dish is somewhat complex in terms of ingredients and preparation, so save it for special occasions – like Mother’s Day.

I served the stew with maftoul or moghrabiyyeh, commonly called Pearled Couscous, or ptitim in Israel. Though the preparation method common in Israel differs slightly from maftoul (it is a paste that is molded in Israel, and a coated couscous elsewhere), the product is essentially identical, despite some Israeli efforts to say otherwise. Maftoul/ptitim are delicious and will be the topic of an upcoming blog post.

Stewed Meatballs with Eggplants and Dried Fruit

Serves 6-8

Stew

2 medium eggplants, peeled and chopped into 1-inch chunks

salt, for preparing eggplant

Two medium onions, diced

Two cloves garlic, finely diced

1 1/2 tbsp table salt

1 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsps white pepper

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp ground oregano

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 1/4 cups chopped dried dates

1 1/4 cups dried prunes, pitted and chopped

2 cups sweet red wine (yes, I used Manischewitz), split into 1/2 cup and 1 1/2 cup amounts

2 bay leaves

1/4 cup honey

2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

4 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

water

2-3 tbsp olive oil

Meatballs

2 lbs ground beef

3 eggs

3/4 cup matzah meal

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1. Place the eggplant pieces into a colander and salt heavily. Set aside for 30 minutes, during which time the eggplant will “sweat.” (This is oxalic acid escaping the eggplant, which means the pieces will be less bitter in the final product.) Afterwards, rinse the eggplant pieces and set aside.

2. Heat a wide, deep pan or Dutch oven. Add olive oil when the pan is hot – the amount should be enough to coat the bottom of the pan.

3. Add the onions and garlic and saute.

4. When the onions begin to soften, add the salt, sugar, paprika, pepper, turmeric, thyme, oregano, and nutmeg, and mix in thoroughly. Saute for another minute.

5. Add the dried dates and prunes and mix in thoroughly. Then, add 1/2 cup wine.

6. Saute until the dates have slightly softened, about three minutes.

7. Add the eggplant pieces, bay leaves, and honey, and mix in thoroughly. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups of wine. Then, add enough water to cover the entire mixture by about 1.5cm/1/2 an inch – this should be between four and six cups of water.

8. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30-45 minutes.

9. Now is the time to make the meatballs. Mix all the ingredients for the meatballs in a large bowl, until the ingredients are thoroughly combined.

10. With your hands, use the mixture to make walnut sized balls (about 4-5cm/1 1/2 inches). You should be able to make 20-25 meatballs.

11. When the eggplant has softened somewhat, add the meatballs and submerge in the mixture. Bring back to a boil, then simmer for another 30-45 minutes.

12. The eggplant will be very soft and the fruit completely mushy when the stew is done. Serve with your favorite carbohydrate.