Roasted Eggplant with Mozzarella and Roasted Yellow Pepper

Once again I am happy to introduce guest blogger, Erica Wissolik, who is sharing a roasted eggplant recipe that looks super tasty and extremely easy! She’s got some great cookbook references, as well as some advice regarding gender identification in eggplants; all presented with her wonderfully entertainingly sense of style. Enjoy!

Love me some eggplant.  Ok, so it’s in that “inflammatory food” category.  But whatever….so are tomatoes and I’m not going to stop eating either of them.

I also love Yotam Ottelgenghi. I highly recommend ALL of his cookbooks to those of you who love to crawl in bed and read cookbooks… and cook as well.  I have a couple of them and I've worked my way through almost all of his recipes.  I've also eaten in his London restaurants and they are a MUST if you find yourself traipsing around Soho or the Portobello Road Flea Market, EAT!!  They are super child-friendly (he’s got one of his own), not expensive, and YUMMY!  The only other cookbook that I've worked that much is the Balthazar book, which is also just a great read in addition to having great recipes.  Yotam’s latest, Jerusalem, cracks me up because he talks about the Jews in his hometown who knew where to find the butchers that had the pork in the back room. You can find videos of him online and he does a regular column in the Guardian newspaper.

I found a recipe in one of the cookbooks called Plenty, but as is usual for me, I read, then closed the book. I bought the ingredients and came back a few days later to make it according to memory and taste. This is one of his recipes based on eggplants, peppers and cheese.

Roasted Eggplant with Mozzarella and Roasted Yellow Pepper

“Broast” (Who remembers Whitey’s in Arlington?) one large yellow pepper, cut in half and cleaned of the seeds, in a toaster oven, for about 10-20 minutes until the skin starts to blister and darken. (I live in a 14th street condo so I try to not use the large oven as much as possible.)  I think any color of pepper would work but the yellow pepper works nicely with the red tomatoes and purple of the eggplant. When the pepper is broasted, cut it into small fingernail-sized pieces and set aside.

Take a small package of cherry tomatoes.  Cut in half and put in sauce pan.

Add about 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar.

Cut a small handful of thyme (assuming you’re lucky to have space to be growing thyme). Otherwise, there’s always the grocery store.  Add the thyme stems to the sauce pan.

If you like your life spicy, add a chopped jalapeno, cayenne or other chile pepper.

Simmer the tomatoes, balsamic and thyme (and pepper) until it slightly thickens and the tomatoes soften.  This should take about 25 min on a low heat – about 2-4 on your stove knob.  You don’t want to totally cook the tomatoes into mush but you do want to reduce some of the liquid in the vinegar and the tomatoes.  The thyme stems will eventually lose some of their leaves and if you have the patience, you can pull out the stems.  Or you can simply keep them in until the end and your audience can pick them out.  I think it’s better to leave them in.

While the tomatoes are doing their thing, take one large, lovely eggplant and slice it into rounds, about ½ inch thick.  Did you know that eggplants supposedly come in male and female versions?  I haven’t researched this but I’m told that if you want less seeds, look for eggplants that have a slight protrusion on the bottom and avoid the ones that have an indentation.  Maybe someone was pulling my leg but it seems to work.

Use your hands to smear olive oil all over the eggplant rounds.  And yes, use your hands because olive oil is good for your skin.

My little brother gave me a George Foreman Grill (http://www.georgeforemancooking.com/) for Christmas one year and while I don’t eat a lot of grilled meat, it does come in handy in situations like this. It’s actually awesome for grilling veggies and fish.  If you have a griddle pan that has ridges use that.  Grill the eggplant rounds. The goal is to partially cook the eggplant while putting some nice grill marks on each round of eggplant.  This takes about 1-2 min for each piece. I could fit and grill 2 pieces at a time.

When the eggplant is all roasted, lay it in a long pan, the kind you might make brownies in.
Add a bit of salt and lots of black crushed pepper to the tops of the eggplant rounds. As always, these two ingredients are added “to taste.”

Plop some globs of fresh mozzarella cheese on each round.  If you like cheese, use lots.  I used 2-3 quarter sized blobs for each round of eggplant.

Pour the tomato balsamic sauce over the rounds.

Sprinkle the chopped roasted yellow pepper over the whole thing and put into a 350 degree for 25 minutes.

I served with whole wheat pasta but a very handsome man said, “This would make a great sandwich on semolina bread too!”

Erica is a former Pittsburgher and go-go dancer, currently living and working in DC as a lobbyist for science and technology issues.  "I cook because I like to know where my food comes from, how it was raised and grown, and because I enjoy inventing my own recipes."