The good eggplant

Video capture of the New York Times'
Melissa Clark eating the messy sandwich.

I made this with a regular local eggplant (one was plenty for two sandwiches), some leftover spaghetti sauce and the focaccia squares from Trader Joe's. Jim has never liked eggplant, but he loved this. Neither one of us could finish our sandwiches; it made quite the big dinner.

I just went off the video, but later saw the recipe from this past week's New York Times' food section. I was pretty close, actually, but the extra fresh garlic and some red chili flakes would have been awesome. I may even try to grill the eggplant first the next time I make this, because the raw eggplant just sucked up a bunch of oil. The egg and dry cheese coating, however, was inspired.


Frankies Spuntino’s Fried Eggplant Sandwich

Time: 3 hours 20 minutes (if you use prepared spaghetti sauce, it takes less than an hour)

Serves 6

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups extra-virgin olive oil
6 garlic cloves, peeled
Pinch red chile flakes
2 (28-ounce) cans whole, peeled tomatoes
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt, more as needed
5 small Italian eggplants (2 pounds)
4 large eggs
6 tablespoons ground Parmigiano-Reggiano, more as needed
6 tablespoons ground pecorino Romano, more as needed
1 very large or 2 medium ciabatta loaves, for serving

Instructions
In a large deep saucepan over medium low heat, combine 1/4 cup oil and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until garlic is golden and fragrant, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in chile flakes; cook 30 seconds.

While garlic cooks, place tomatoes and juices in a large bowl and crush with clean hands. Remove tomatoes’ firm stem ends and any basil leaves packed into the can. Stir crushed tomatoes and salt into pot. Simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently, until tomatoes and garlic have completely broken down and sauce is thick, about 2 hours. Cool.

Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment or paper towels. Trim stem end from eggplants; peel and discard skin. Using a knife or a Japanese mandolin, slice lengthwise into 3/16-inch-thick slabs. Arrange eggplant in a single layer on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle both sides of eggplant slices with salt. Let stand 10 minutes. Pat eggplant dry with paper towels.

Line another rimmed baking sheet with paper towel and place a wire rack on top. In a large, deep skillet, heat 1/2 cup oil until a drop of water flicked into pan sizzles. Working in batches, fry eggplant until just tender, 20 to 30 seconds per side. Transfer fried eggplant to rack to drain. Remove skillet from heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, 2 tablespoons Parmigiano-Reggiano and 2 tablespoons pecorino. Add 3/4 cup oil to the skillet and return to medium-high heat until oil is sizzling.

Working in batches, dip drained eggplant into egg batter; fry in oil until lightly golden and cooked through, 2 to 4 minutes per batch. You will know oil is hot enough if batter puffs and sticks to eggplant on contact with oil. If it falls off, the oil isn’t hot enough.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spread 1/2 cup tomato sauce in the bottom of a 9-inch square baking pan. Arrange eggplant over the bottom of pan in a tight, even layer. Top with 1/3 of the remaining combined cheeses. Repeat layer of sauce, eggplant and 1/3 of cheese. Finish with a final layer of sauce and cheese (reserve any remaining sauce for serving). Transfer pan to oven and bake until cheese is melted and golden, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven; Spoon additional sauce over top, and garnish with additional cheese. Cool for at least 20 minutes.

Cut eggplant into six equal pieces. Cut ciabatta into six pieces equal to the size of the eggplant servings. Split each portion of the ciabatta horizontally and toast. Sandwich eggplant portions between bread and serve.

Postscript to this post: If you are wondering why I wrote "chili" and the New York Times wrote "chile," "chili" is AP style for the vegetable and food dish; Chile is the country.

Saucy poached eggs

Poached eggs can be a lot of work, and that's probably why most of us don't make them more often. I once had a volunteer crew poach 200 of them for a breakfast we used to do at our Sacramento church, but that's a story for another time.

Someone (not me) came up with a great idea: Poach the eggs IN their sauce. It's a very good way to prepare one of my favorite dishes, huevos rancheros, which I made last week to my husband's delight.

Saucy Poached Eggs
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 can Herdez ranchero sauce
Water
4 eggs
Salt and pepper
4 corn tortillas
4 ounces shredded cheese

Directions
Turn on oven to 350 degrees.
Put the ranchero sauce and a can of water in a large saucepan. Bring to a full boil. Turn down to medium and add the eggs so that they are as far apart as possible. Salt and pepper to taste.
Put the 4 tortillas on a cookie sheet and put 1 ounce of cheese on each. Spread the cheese out so that it covers most of the tortilla. Put in the oven until the cheese melts.
When the whites have mostly set, and the cheese on the tortillas has melted, cover the saucepan to get the top part of the whites done, but not so long that the yolk hardens.
Remove tortillas from oven and put 2 tortillas each on 2 plates.  Uncover, and using a large spoon, loosen the eggs from the saucepan and put one on each tortilla. Spoon any extra sauce over. Serve with knife and fork.

Sous vide pasta

Crockpots are good for things that need to be cooked for a long time, slowly, but often, the meals that are best with a slow-cooked sauce have elements to them that do not need to be cooked as long.

Case in point today: spaghetti.

The sauce went in around noon, and by 3 p.m., it was smelling pretty good. Next up, pasta. But heating up a big pot of water that will later just be drained seemed like a waste. Could there be a better way? I knew if I just threw in the dry pasta into the sauce, it would cook, but it would absorb all the liquid and the starch would leach into the sauce, making it gummy and not so appetizing.

But with the vacuum bags from the store, there was another option: Put the dry pasta, broken in half, in the bag with water; seal; then put the washed bag into the sauce to cook along with it until dinner time.

It worked - well, it sort of worked.

When I checked on it two hours later, it had more than doubled in size. And when I opened it, it was in separate strands, but it was overdone and very starchy. I rinsed it and got most of the starch off of it, then added it to the sauce. Topped with Parmesan, it was good, but not great.

From what I've read on sous vide cooking, the length of time shouldn't have been the problem, so perhaps I used too much water. Next time, instead of doubling the water to pasta, I'll just use a bit more than what's needed to cover it.