Three thoughts, plus one

Last night I made a very nice eggplant curry. It was one of those catch-as-catch-can affairs, never to be exactly repeated, but it did make me take notice of three interesting points.

(1) I almost never cook eggplant without first baking/roasting it, and only when it is completely cooked already do I stew it or fry it or what have you. This strategy prevents the horrible happenstance of undercooked eggplant, which is a truly vile substance. It also prevents the sponge-of-oil effect for which eggplant is so justly known. With baking parchment or a silpat sheet, you can roast pieces of eggplant completely dry, or you can toss them with just a little oil and be sure to grease your baking sheet thoroughly. Either way, the toasty edges add a pleasant flavor and do soften back up in the moist cooking.

(2) Baked eggplant skin is not very nice. Now that I have gone back to saving scraps for making stock, I feel perfectly comfortable removing the skin (and a little flesh, because I do not peel so very painstakingly) before baking, a rougher but generally superior strategy. As it turns out, eggplant is one of those surprising vegetables you can add in nigh-unlimited quantity to your stock, and it will only make it better, like lettuce.

(3) Often when I am making some sort of curried something, I want to add just a little bit of tomato. If tomatoes are in season, that works out well. If they are not, I rebel against opening a new big can of tomatoes just to use one tenth of the contents, and then have to transfer the remainder to some non-metal container and remember to use it up soon. My standard cheat is to use a few tablespoons of salsa. We usually have some in the fridge, and generally all the extra flavors (garlic, chile, and so on) complement the curry just fine. I have a heavy hand with curry spices, too, which helps.

(bonus) After talking with S. about lentils and split peas the other night, I realized that it is not necessarily common knowledge that you really must wait until they are as soft as you want them before you add acidic ingredients. The vinegar, mustard (which contains vinegar), lemon juice, lime juice, or other such thing will put a halt (or near halt) to the softening process -- which is very useful, provided you're ready to have it stopped. Otherwise, your lentils will be rather crunchy.

Posted by redfox at February 05, 2003 08:40 AM (tips)

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