Skip to main content

Return of the Eggplant

I said I was on an eggplant mission, and I wasn't kidding.

The following is not a recipe traditional to ANY ethnic cuisine AFAIK, it is something I threw together after chatting with Armand Saiia of El Valle's Dragonfly Farms and purchasing a bag full of his excellent baby eggplants.

Eggplant, Sage and Walnut Pasta

1 lb baby eggplant, sliced in half-inch rounds
½ cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Pinch of red pepper flakes
handful of chopped walnuts
¼ cup dried breadcrumbs
several chopped fresh sage leaves
Salt, pepper to taste.

Saute the garlic and red pepper flakes in the olive oil until it smells good but do not let the garlic brown. Add the eggplant and saute until softened. Add the bread crumbs, walnuts and fresh sage leaves and saute a minute or two more. Season.

Toss with pasta. Whole wheat penne would be perfect. Grated parmesan is nice but not required.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chicos and Beans!

Chicos and Beans, Ese! They go together like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. But what ARE they, and why are they so good? Chicos are as far as I know an ingredient peculiar to northeastern New Mexico. Chicos are sweet corn which is roasted in an outdoor wood-fired adobe oven called an Horno (pronounced or-no, as rhyming with “porno,” but don't make that association with the older generation.) The result is that the corn is preserved, but it keeps its sweetness and the sugars in the corn are caramelized, resulting in a wonderful, distinctive flavor. It is best to buy them from someone who has roasted them, as one never really knows how old the ones in the stores may be. Just like beans, if they are more than a year old, you have to cook them forever to make them tender. The classic winter repast of chicos and beans is about the sweetness of the ingredients and how they harmonize with each other. The chicos provide the sweetness of roasted corn, the smoked ham hocks provide the swe...
3 comments
Read more

Tasso - ham the cajun way

The ham most of us eat today has only a little in common with the ham that was common at the table a century ago. Yes, it is smoked, cured pork. But today, that ham is typically cured by injecting it with a solution of brine and flavor additives; faster, and it puts the consumer in the position of paying ham prices for water. Look carefully at the supermarket label and you will likely see in small print, "ham and water product" or "10% added water by weight." The country hams of old were a different beast. Pork, yes, and generally pork leg, they would be rubbed down with a mixture of salt, sugar (or molasses) and spices, and left in this for days or even weeks, a process which drew water out of the pork, jump-starting the drying process as it preserved the ham. This was prior to the days of the refrigerator and freezer, and that was the core concept of the ham - by drying the meat out, infusing the flesh with salt and nitrates, and smoking it, the perishable po...
Post a Comment
Read more

Green Chile Hummus

A couple of days ago, I bought a couple of bags of lentils and a lemon at our local supermarket. The cashier asked me if I use lemon in my lentils, and actually, I sometimes do, but I told her that the lemon was for my hummus. She asked me what that was, as she had never heard of such a thing. And since the mission of this blog is to introduce local folks to foods unfamiliar to them, I am going to talk about hummus, and share the best hummus recipe ever. Hummus is a delicious Middle Eastern appetizer, a healthy and immensely flavorful dip that will make you ashamed that you ever served the ranch dressing or onion soup mix sour cream dips to people you actually like. Hummus is a puree of garbanzo beans, tahini (sesame seed paste)garlic and lemon juice. Healthy and pure heaven in your mouth. But being me, I was recently making hummus for a party and I asked myself, "How could I make this even better, and maybe put a New Mexico spin on it?" I did so by adding locally grown,...
Post a Comment
Read more