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Aubergine

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Re: Aubergines

Postby Stokey Sue » Fri Sep 10, 2021 12:45 pm

i like aubergines but haven't cooked them much recently as they tend either to be cooked with meat, or cooked or served with yogurt, or with spices I'm not currently enjoying

In general my main uses are
Cheats ratatouille - roast all the vegetables, pop the tomatoes and garlic out of their skins and mash, fold the aubergines, courgettes, and peppers into the mushy sauce

Stuffed, either with minced meat or a lentil mix, quite similar to make and eat

Mutabal/Baba ganoush http://syrianfoodie.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... tabal.html

Slices grilled or roasted and served with garlicky yogurt or tsatsiki

Moussaka, meat or veg

Parmigiana

Recently trying out the recipes in Falastin by Sami Tamimi, I have made his version of Musaa'qa an aubergine and chickpea bake with modified spicing and today I am making Rummaniyya which is aubergines and whole lentils with pomegranate molasses and a lot of onion. Will have to modify the spicing as it contains the :twisted: pairing of cumin and coriander

One thing I have learned from Falastin is to cut aubergines chunkier and roast them hotter(200C fan) than I am used to, if carefully coated with oil by tossing rather than drizzling they shrink quite a lot and have a pleasingly browned outer adn a soft centre, cf good roasties

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Re: Aubergines

Postby Suelle » Fri Sep 10, 2021 12:50 pm

I occasionally make a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe for aubergine with pork mince, ginger and other Asian ingredients which steams the aubergine cubes rather than frying them. That works very well in avoiding too much added oil.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... rk-recipes

I think slices, or even whole aubergine, can be cooked in the microwave too. I think I've seen Jamie Oliver do it - or was he baking them?
Traditional home baking, and more:
http://mainlybaking.blogspot.co.uk/

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Re: Aubergines

Postby Stokey Sue » Fri Sep 10, 2021 12:58 pm

I have cooked an aubergine in the microwave, having seen tv cooks do it, was not impressed with the results but it was a long time ago and maybe I should try again, as they are cheap at the moment
Googling the consensus seems to be to give them a good marinade, which I didn't do

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Re: Aubergines

Postby herbidacious » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:12 pm

I am growing 7 different types of aubergine this year, although they are not all fruiting yet. (Hopefully the greenhouse will prolong the season for the ones that aren't.)

The miso honey marinated aubergine (with chipotle flakes I made was very good. Melt in the mouth flesh. It involved parcelling it up in greaseproof for half the cooking time, so I suppose it was semi-steamed which may not sound appealing but it worked.

My mainstay, like most people's are parmigiana and a vegetarian version of moussaka. (Not a lentil one. This is one dish i used fake mince for.) Caponata too. Imam bayildi. (sp?)

I have been known to stuff them but again not with rice, lentils or meat subs.

I have four in the fridge to use up. Was going to make parmigiana but it's quite time consuming... Does anyone favour a particular recipe?
Last edited by herbidacious on Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Aubergines

Postby Stokey Sue » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:18 pm

ooh - imam bayeldi - I'd forgotten! Have made them with the egg sized purple aubergines you can get at some Turkish and Greek stores which is nice fir a meze

Also Madhur's aubergines in the pickling style (Lake Palace Hotel) - again very good made with the smaller varieties

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Re: Aubergines

Postby herbidacious » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:22 pm

Just flicking through Carluccio's vegetables.

He uses them as a base for toppings - pesto, cheese etc.

There is also rotolini/involtini. I tried these once years ago, but the problem was getting them to coook sufficiently after filling.

I used to make a sort of stuffed aubergine where you fan out the halves and stuff ingredients inbetween them.

There are ratatouille type things too. Plus roasted aubergine and other med veg used to go in pan bagnat for me.

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Re: Aubergines

Postby liketocook » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:30 pm

herbidacious wrote:I am growing 7 different types of aubergine this year, although they are not all fruiting yet. (Hopefully the greenhouse will prolong the season for the ones that aren't.)

The miso honey marinated aubergine (with chipotle flakes I made was very good. Melt in the mouth flesh. It involved parcelling it up in greaseproof for half the cooking time, so I suppose it was semi-steamed which may not sound appealing but it worked.

My mainstay, like most people's are parmigiana and a vegetarian version of moussaka. (Not a lentil one. This is one dish i used fake mince for.) Caponata too. Imam bayildi. (sp?)

I have been known to stuff them but again not with rice, lentils or meat subs.

I have four in the fridge to use up. Was going to make parmigiana but it's quite time consuming... Does anyone favour a particular recipe?

I like Jamie Oliver's version https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/veg ... armigiana/ which I find pretty straight forward and not to time consuming to do. I usually bake rather than grill the aubergines which cuts out a bit of the faff.

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Re: Aubergines

Postby herbidacious » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:42 pm

I usually bake too, but sometimes get it wrong... :?

This has prompted me to prep three of the aubergines. I prefer to salt them, as it makes them absorb less oil (I think) plus these are homegrown, so I can't presuppose that they will not be bitter. Some types are quite seedy. I am using a Scorpio/Black Beauty combo for this, whatever 'this' turns out to be...

I am not sure why, but I seem to regard aubergines as a bit of a treat and it feels profligate to be using them in large quantites!

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Re: Aubergines

Postby KeenCook2 » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:49 pm

I love aubergines but OH won't eat them. DS1 is very fond of them so when he's here he and I enjoy them together!

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Re: Aubergines

Postby Pepper Pig » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:56 pm

KeenCook2 wrote:I love aubergines but OH won't eat them.


Ditto. My go-to recipe for one is this from Delia which I’m making tonight while he has pizza.

https://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/mea ... amalfitane

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Re: Aubergines

Postby KeenCook2 » Fri Sep 10, 2021 2:33 pm

That looks nice, PP :thumbsup

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Re: Aubergines

Postby Pampy » Fri Sep 10, 2021 6:40 pm

I've not had a lot of aubergines and have never found any dish that I liked. To me, they go soggy when cooked which is a definite no-no for me.

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Re: Aubergines

Postby Amyw » Fri Sep 10, 2021 8:42 pm

https://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/gr ... -and-honey

These are really nice , as part of a tapas/small plates thing. From his Veg book which is very good

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Re: Aubergines

Postby liketocook » Fri Sep 10, 2021 8:48 pm

Oh yes Amy they sound good, our local tapas place does these and they are very moreish. There's some great recipes in the book, I must look it out as I had forgotten about it.
There's 7 aubergine recipes in the Jamie Oliver 7 Ways book, I must have another look at them. (I'm not sure why I've overlooked them to now :oops: )

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Re: Aubergines

Postby smitch » Fri Sep 10, 2021 10:27 pm

I love aubergines and have had some delicious ones in my veg box.

I’ve made a few of the dishes already mentioned. I’ve also done the curry on here https://amp.theguardian.com/food/2019/may/17/anna-jones-aubergine-recipes-wedges-pistachio-crumb-curry-tamarind and this recipe too
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/mar/13/meera-sodha-vegan-recipe-aubergine-donburi

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Re: Aubergines

Postby Badger's Mate » Fri Sep 10, 2021 11:47 pm

Most of my favourites have been mentioned, but I'd add the recipe from the original Ken Hom BBC book, in which they're cooked with garlic, ginger, chilli & yellow bean sauce.

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Re: Aubergines

Postby smitch » Sat Sep 11, 2021 11:57 am

Can’t believe I forgot fish fragrant aubergine from my list! I use Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipe

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Re: Aubergines

Postby PatsyMFagan » Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:36 am

I'm really enjoying reading all these ideas for cooking with Aubergines. I must learn to be more adventurous as I only use them in a Moussaka and I've got the Jamie Oliver book too... Must try harder :oops: ;)

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Re: Aubergines

Postby halfateabag » Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:18 am

We bought a gi-normous A. at the market on Wed. It was a euro and is at least twice the size of the ones in Lidl. I plan to slice it into circles, brush with oil and cook the slices. Then use the slices as mini wraps instead of bread. I remember seeing a recipe using some sort of meat for the filling. The filled 'wraps' were then used as part of a finger buffet or submerging the mini wraps in some sort of tomato sauce. Which I happen to have in the DF at the villa for another supper sometime.

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Re: Aubergines

Postby KeenCook2 » Mon Sep 27, 2021 11:01 am

This might have some interesting ideas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/ ... _aubergine Unfortunately OH detests them so we never have them!

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