A tasty way to cook an eggplant

Eggplant is one of my favorite veggies, but I’ve never been so good at cooking it. When I grill it, it dries up. When I saute it, it burns. In stir-fries it somehow manages to cook at a different pace from other vegetables, rendering it sub-par, texture-wise - either too mushy or not quite mushy enough. WTF, eggplant?

I kind of gave up for a while and stuck to ordering it at restaurants or using it at home only in ratatouille, an eggplant recipe I can handle.

But then… eggplant mastery. I prepared eggplant in the following way and it tasted really damn good. If you’re an eggplant fan, pay close attention. This recipe is worth repeating:

What you will need:

• 1 large eggplant
• 4 Tbs chopped cilantro
• 1 Tbs cumin
• 1 Tbs chili powder
• Canola or another type of vegetable oil. But NOT olive oil.*

Steps:

1. Peel your eggplant.
2. Cut it into eight round patties. Salt and pepper them; set them aside.
3. In a bowl, combine cilantro, cumin and chili powder. Run the mixture through a food processor if you have one - this will make the cilantro much smaller and the next step will work much better.
4. Coat the eggplant rounds with the cilantro/cumin/chili powder mixture.
5. Heat the canola oil to medium heat in a frying pan. Use just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan.
6. Sauté the eggplant in the oil until soft, flipping halfway through and adding more oil as needed.

Mmm, mmm good.

The recipe I used comes from Vegetarian Southwest, a wonderful cookbook I highly recommend. The recipe is called “Cilantro-Seared Eggplant with Sonoran Ratatouille.” I made the (eggplant-free) ratatouille, too, but as I said above, I’ve had ratatouille in the bag for ages. No need to brag about tackling it again.

*Using olive oil to sauté eggplant slices = No. 1 mistake I’ve made in the past. The olive oil gets too hot and burns the eggplant. Not good at all. Canola works much better.