Savoring The Veggie With A Funny Name
Nearly ripe black beauty eggplant in my dad’s garden. We are missing harvesting our own eggplants this year due to the renovation.
As Mike and I share in the sustainability section of our website, a big influence on how we grow and make food has been our travels. So one of our favorite ways to prepare something yummy with eggplant is something we picked up on one of our favorite vacations. But before I get into the delicious dish, a bit of background on what I consider to be a very cute and versatile veggie that we love to harvest in late summer.
So what’s up with that name? The eggplant 🍆, which many of us probably think, looks nothing like an egg. Instead, it usually has an oblong or overly large pear-like shape and is often purple. Over the years, Mike and I have grown both the classically dark purple Black Beauty variety, a longer skinnier Japanese eggplant variety as well as a white variety that you don’t typically see in the grocery store but does look like a rather large egg. While we call it eggplant here in the US, many around the world call this veggie aubergine which etymologically is a French word. Mentioned in historical texts all the way back to 300 B.C.E., the plant originated in India and through southeast Asia and southwest China. You can find wild ones still growing there - and they still look more like goose eggs - smaller and white. Over time the eggplant has been bred to be the shapes and colors that are more common in the grocery store today. The name eggplant may date back to the British occupation of India reflecting the shape, size and color of the original plant before we started to breed many different variations. As the plant traveled to Europe, the more refined name of aubergine took hold. And actually if you see the purple ones when they are just starting to fruit out, you will see a size, shape and color that resembles the original egglike plant growing in the wild.
Medieval artwork featuring the purple fruit.
Source: https://coquinaria.nl/en/aubergines-in-aubergine-sauce/
Not sure if it’s because of the funny name or the shape and color or the leathery texture of the raw flesh, but I find that eggplant is a vegetable that does not always get the love more mainstream veggies like carrots, kale or broccoli receive. Yet it can be prepared in many creative ways. I will always remember the first time I heard it called aubergine when I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Geilenkirchen Germany (right outside of Aachen) when I was in high school and we went to a restaurant that served a deliciously succulent eggplant pork dish - it was so delicious I made them take me back to that restaurant more than once. Many people primarily come into contact with eggplant in Eggplant Parmesan smothering it in tomato and cheese Italian-cooking goodness to the point where you might not know it’s eggplant. Or for those who love anything grilled - eggplant is fun to add to a mix of veggies on the grill. And then there is the basil eggplant dish one might find at a Chinese restaurant like our fav takeout place in Lake Zurich - Chef Bo’s Green Garden restaurant. Of course, if you love dips, you probably have had baba ghanoush - smokier, heartier hummus-type dip made of eggplant that is perfect with raw or roasted vegetables or toasted pita bread.
But the most playful, yet simple, eggplant dish we’ve found yummily addictive is one Mike and I picked up on our vacation to Barcelona in 2014. Of course, food is a main attraction on any trip to that amazing city. We firmly believe one can never have too many tapas. The small size of any tapas dish means you can stack your meal with the variety that makes me the happiest of campers on the planet. :)
Tucked away in the historic El Born neighborhood of Barcelona, we found our two favorite tapas places of all time - El Xampanyet and Tapeo. We went to both those places multiple times during our vacation in the city filled with Gaudi whimsy. And at Tapeo we fell in love with the eggplant tapas dish they served. Cubes, triangles, chunks of eggplant perfectly coated and roasted with flour and cornmeal to be slightly crispy and crunchy sprinkled with lime and lime zest and drizzled with honey. All I can say is it’s like an appetizer, main dish, and dessert in one. It does a perfect job of featuring the greatness of the veggie with the funny name.
So after we returned from the trip, we were on a mission to replicate that tapas delight. We learned that size makes a difference - we need to use smaller chunks of the eggplant - slices will not work for this recipe. We learned that the crisp coating requires corn meal; coating solely with flour is too bready. And we learned, you have to soak the eggplant in salt and milk to temper the bitterness, making it extra creamy. Plus, this helps the cornmeal stick. We love to harvest an eggplant and make this yummy delight. Thanks to the First Mess recipe website for the foundation of this recipe.
Crunchy Lime Honey Eggplant Bites
Ingredients:
1 large eggplant cut into 1/2-1 inch chunks/wedges/batons
3-4 cups milk - you can use either regular milk or plant-based milk. I prefer to use whole milk here.
1-2 cups polenta or heavy duty cornmeal. Having a mixture of some flour with cornmeal can also work.
Fine sea salt
Olive oil
1-2 limes - for zest and juice - depends on how lime-enhanced you want this to be. We always use two.
Flaky sea salt
Honey or agave nectar
Ingredients at the ready! We typically use Redmond Real Fine Sea Salt (not pictured here) for soaking the eggplant in salt and milk and then the Celtic Sea Salt for sprinkling at the end.
Thanks to Elawa Farm for this lovely large eggplant!
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.
After cutting the eggplant into chunks/wedges/batons, cover the pieces with a pinch of fine sea salt and soak the pieces in a bowl filled with milk. Let the pieces soak for at least one hour.
Prepare a dish or bowl with polenta and stir a pinch of salt into the polenta. Cover a baking pan with olive oil.
Take each piece of fully-soaked eggplant and shake off excess milk. Then dredge each eggplant chunk in the polenta/cornmeal and cover it with the oil in the pan.
Bake for 15-25 minutes turning once halfway through. This will depend on how large or thick your eggplant pieces are and how consistently your oven heats. You want the bites to be browned and fully roasted when they come out.
Remove from oven and generously sprinkle with lime zest, flaky sea salt, honey and lime juice.
Chunks of eggplant looking happy
Soaking in milk after salting the pieces
Zesting away!
Polenta and salt ready for dredging
Oil up the parchment paper
Dredging assembly line ready to go
One-at-a-time out of the milk bath and into the polenta you go!
Coating milk-infused eggplant in polenta crunchiness!
Rolling each happy chunk in oil on parchment paper
Ready for the oven!
Plated and sprinkled with lime zest, salt flakes, honey and lime juice
Perfect for summertime dinner on the patio
One Happy Boolo enjoying the perfect eggplant bite!
Another Happy Boolo very grateful we stumbled upon this yumminess in Barcelona!