Eggplant rolls

Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. Every week, I share a new recipe, along with links to recipes online and news. Free subscribers will receive one free original recipe every month (usually the first week). Paid subscribers get a free original recipe every week, plus access to all my recipe archives. If you would like to see your subscription options, click the link below. As always, I appreciate all of you being here! This week’s stunning is for paid subscribers.

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🥦 My new cookbook, Tenderheart offers 500+ pages of vegetarian and vegan recipes, with vegetables at the helm. It is also mostly vegan (or vegan-izable) and gluten-free. If you have been wanting to add more vegetables to your daily meals, but are looking for inventive flavours that are not boring or tired, pick up your copy here.

🙏🏼 And a reminder, if you love 💚 Tenderheart, leave it a review on Amazon (whether you purchased it there or not) which makes it easier for others to find my book. Thank you!

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I am being hedonistic this summer. Each day, without restraint, I gorge on summer’s plump produce. I am 8 year old Hetty again, the girl who used to eat stone fruit until she got sick. I am not unhappy about it.

This recipe manifested directly from what I have in my kitchen right now - fat, crimson tomatoes, taut-skinned and heavy eggplants, beautiful herbs that grow freely on my stoop. This dish is a celebration of all the delicate essences that summer gifts us.

Many people ask about eggplant. Their questions are about texture and best cooking practices.

One of the most popular questions is about whether to salt it. As a general rule, modern cultivars of eggplant are not as bitter as they once were, so most of the time, you can get away without salting. However, sometimes I will salt the eggplant if I want to tenderize it before cooking, like I do in my salt and pepper eggplant recipe in To Asia, With Love. I do this to ensure even and quick cooking without it burning. I also salt first for my smoky eggplant and lentil stew with baked feta recipe in Tenderheart; I do this to draw out moisture (rather than bitterness, per se) which concentrates the eggplant flavor and gets them ready to drink up the delectable tomato sauce. For this recipe below however, where I want it to char a little, no salting is required.

Recently, when I was a guest on WNYC (New York public radio), a listener called in and asked about the amount of oil it takes to cook eggplant. Eggplant is a sponge and the more oil you add to the pan, the more it will drink up. There are two tips I have for this. The first is a general cooking rule - get your pan nice and hot; I recommend heating it for at least 2-3 minutes on medium high. The hotter the pan, the less likely that the oil will sit on the pan surface like a slick, waiting to be absorbed into your vegetables. Another technique to avoid oil-logged eggplant is to do as I do here, and oil your eggplant BEFORE it goes into your pan. In this recipe, I drizzle a little olive oil over the sliced eggplant and then use my hands to spread it out, coating both sides lightly. For this recipe, I’m not using more than 1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons of oil.

Finally, the question of bitterness. I am particularly insensitive to bitterness because when I eat eggplant, I rarely taste bitter at all. Nevertheless, the bitterness of eggplant is something I get asked about a lot. I suggest choosing young eggplant - ones that are on the smaller size with smooth, glossy skin, as the large overgrown ones have lots of ‘seeds’ and tend to be more bitter - or try a different variety like the elongated Chinese/Japanese varieties which I don’t find bitter at all. Also, cook your eggplant properly. Partially cooked eggplant is not only rubbery (which eggplant should NEVER BE), it will also have harsher flavors. When eggplant is ready, the flesh turns from opaque, to a softer, ‘translucent’ look and feels soft.

This week

Eat a streamlined version of my already super easy dumpling salad from To Asia, With Love. Read about it over at Cup of Jo, as part of their new 5-ingredient Dinner series written by the one and only

Jenny Rosenstrach

of

Dinner: A Love Story

.

Cook one of my 31 recipes that are now available on the Epicurious app. This is a collection of recipes that I have contributed to Bon Appétit and Epicurious over the years, along with a few excerpts from my books Tenderheart and To Asia, With Love. Lots of fun recipes in that collection including my pandemic viral hits Miso Squash Ramen, turmeric and coconut braised cabbage with chickpeas, and sesame tofu with broccoli.

Help Maui! The devastation in Maui after the wildfires continues to shock me. The city of Lāhainā has been nearly destroyed. Unlike the Australian bushfires of 2020, the relief effort is getting much less traction on social media so I wanted to share some links where people can donate, however small, if you’re in a position to. As always during times of crisis, it’s often hard to know which charities are on the ground making a difference. In cases like this, I turn to people that I trust. The Obamas have put together a list of charities here.

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This week’s recipe

Eggplant rolls with chickpea filling

© Hetty Lui McKinnon for To Vegetables, With Love

This recipe is a take on eggplant involtini, but greatly simplified. Yes, there are still a few steps, but they are each easy and unfussy. Ricotta is commonly used as an eggplant filling, but I’ve used mashed chickpeas here, gussied up with herbs, and a little tahini to bind it together – it’s full of earthy flavour and also has the advantage of being pantry-friendly, economical and vegan. The real shortcut here is the sauce which is no-cook - it is just grated tomatoes kissed with olive oil, garlic and salt. Summer tomatoes are sweet and syrupy enough to be used this way.

Serves 2

400g (13oz) eggplant (1 medium), trimmed and sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch 6mm
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped chives or scallions
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, coriander, mint or basil, plus more to serve
bread, to serve (optional)

Herby chickpea filling
250g (1 can) chickpeas, liquid drained and reserved
2 tablespoons tahini
1 clove garlic, grated
sea salt and black pepper
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon, plus more for serving

Grated tomatoes
300g tomato
1/2 -1 teaspoon red chili (pepper) flakes (to your liking)
sea salt and black pepper
extra virgin olive oil

Heat a large skillet (frying pan) on medium high for 3 minutes.

While the pan is heating, spread the eggplant slices out on a cutting board and drizzle with a little olive oil; use your hands to coat the entire slice. Flip over and lightly oil the other side.

Working in batches, lay out as many slices of eggplant that will fit into your pan, and sprinkle with a little salt and black pepper. Cook for 2 minutes until golden and then flip over and repeat on other side. Continue cooking remaining eggplant. Set the grilled eggplant aside to cool.

Place the chickpeas in a bowl and mash them with a fork. Stir in 2-3 tablespoons of the chickpea soaking liquid (aquafaba) to loosen up the mixture. Add the tahini, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt, big pinch black pepper, lemon zest and juice, and stir to combine. Taste and season with more salt and lemon juice, if needed.

Onto a deep rimmed serving plate or shallow dish, grate the tomato and garlic (I use the large holes of a box grater for the tomato and fine micro plane for the garlic). Add the red chili (pepper) flakes, about 3/4 teaspoon of sea salt and pinch of black pepper, and about 1 tablespoon olive oil. Stir to combine and set aside.

Place a heaped tablespoon of the chickpea filling onto the thicker end of the eggplant and roll it up. Place it straight into the grated tomatoes. Continue filling and rolling the remaining eggplant slices, placing them into the tomatoes as you go. When it’s all done, drizzle the eggplant with olive oil, squeeze over some lemon juice, and finish with your choice of herbs.

Serve immediately, as is, or with bread.

Note: This recipe can be prepared several hours ahead of time. It can be kept at room temperature. The eggplant can be grilled and the chickpea filling can be mixed 24 hours ahead of time.

Eggplant Rolls With Chickpea Filling

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