The Science of Good Cooking (Cook's Illustrated Cookbooks)
Tags: vegetarian eggplant CI cooking concept
Recipe Review
Queezle_Sister from Salt Lake City, UT
This was a decent pasta dish, and the instructions for dealing with the eggplant were superb. If you like things somewhat spicy, this could easily rate a "4".
This recipe is one that illustrates the Cooks Illustrated Cooking Concept 23: Salting Vegetables Removes Liquid. The eggplant is cut into 1/2 inch cubes, salted, and then microwaved (on a plate lined with coffee filters). The microwaving speeds up the water loss and contributes to evaporation. The eggplant responded by becoming shriveled and dry - as indicated in the instructions. The eggplant is then caramelized in the frying pan. It took up very little oil and browned up beautifully.
A can of crushed tomatoes, basil (we used pesto), and anchovies rounded out the sauce. It also included red pepper flakes. In the future I would cut the amount - either use the 1/4 tsp low range or half of that.
My husband does not care for eggplant, but he enjoyed this dish quite a bit.
Comments
Zosia - 22nd January 2013
So that's the trick to getting caramelized and not oil-soaked sauteed eggplant. Thank you, that's great information.
I think I want this book!
Queezle_Sister - 22nd January 2013
It worked surprisingly well. About 1 lb - cut into 1/2 inch cubes, salted with 1T kosher salt, laid on coffee filters on a plate, and microwaved for about 10 minutes.
After that you toss the eggplant with 1T olive oil, and use 1T in your nonstick pan - so only 2T oil. I was impressed at how well it worked. I like this book a lot - it is teaching me basic information that (I hope) will help all of my cooking.
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