Sweet Corn Polenta with Eggplant Sauce

I have yet to find a polenta-based dish I don't adore. And Yotam was kind enough to provide me with yet another means of enjoying some sweet corn action, combined with a glorious Italian eggplant sauce.

Now, fair warning, this is not standard polenta. You create a polenta-type meal from fresh corn kernels, butter, and feta and you blitz it all to oblivion. And how could that be wrong?

I used the eggplant sauce that Yotam recommends with the dish, but really, you can use any of your favorite polenta topping with this one. Cheese, mushrooms, the list is endless if you're as big a polenta fan as I am. But the eggplant sauce is good and perfect for a cold winter's night.

Serves 4

Ingredients

Eggplant Sauce
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 medium eggplant, cut into 3/4-inch dice
2 tsp tomato paste
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup chopped peeled tomatoes (fresh or canned)
6 1/2 tbsp water
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp chopped oregano

Polenta
6 ears of corn
2 1/4 cups water
3 tbsp butter, diced
7 oz feta, crumbled
1/4 tsp salt
black pepper

Method

Eggplant Sauce
Heat up oil in a large saucepan and fry the eggplant on medium heat for about 15minutes, or until nicely brown. Drain off as much oil as you can and discard it. Add the tomato paste to the pan and stir with the eggplant. Cook for 2 minutes, then add the wine and cook for 1 minute. Add the chopped tomatoes, water, salt, sugar, oregano and cook for a further 5 minutes to get a deep-flavored sauce. Set aside; warm it up when needed.

Polenta
Remove the leaves and silk from each ear of corn, then chop off the pointed top and stalk. Stand each ear upright on its base and use a sharp knife to shave off the kernels. You want to have 1 1/4 lbs of kernels.

Place the kernels in a medium saucepan and cover them with the 2 1/4 cups water. Cook for 12 minutes on a low simmer. Use a slotted spoon to lift the kernels from the water and into a food processor (or just use an immersion blender to save space and time) and reserve the cooking liquid. Process/Blend them for quite a few minutes, to break as much of the kernel case as possible. Add some of the cooking liquid if the mixture becomes too dry to process.

Now return the corn paste to the pan with the cooking liquid and cook, while stirring, on low heat for 10-15 minutes, or until the mixture thickens to a mashed potato consistency. Fold in the butter, the feta, salt, and some pepper and cook for a further 2 minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Divide the polenta among shallow bowls and spoon some warm eggplant sauce in the center.

Eggplant Salad with Miso

Whenever I head back to the Phoenician homelands I have a few restaurants on my "must visit" list. One of these, the Cherry Blossom Noodle Cafe, is perhaps the best thing since sliced bread, serving a wonderfully eclectic blend of sushi, Asian soups, Italian soups, and freshly baked banana bread served with every meal. Yes. That's right. With every meal. It's like someone downloaded my mind and created a restaurant menu from it. This place is heaven.

Anyway, on their menu they feature a fairly standard Asian eggplant salad. Silky cooked eggplant with a soy miso dressing. Fabulous. I've never been able to figure out exactly how they made it, but when I saw a recipe that looked similar in Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian", I knew I had to try it.

Alas, it wasn't exactly the same as Cherry Blossom's salad o'glory (I blame my lack of white miso for this), but, hey, you can't imitate heaven. And, that being said, this version is still pretty good. The walnuts make for a good addition, providing a nice crunch against the softness of the eggplant. My quest for the perfect eggplant salad continues, but until then, this recipe will do nicely.

Serves 4


Ingredients
About 1 lb eggplant
2 tablespoons olive oil 
Salt
1/3 cup white miso (mine was a dark miso, if using it, I'd recommend no more than 1/4 a cup)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon rice vinegar or freshly squeezed lemon juice
Cayenne (to taste)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts


Method
Trim the eggplant and cut it into 1-inch cubes. If the eggplant are large, soft, or especially seedy, sprinkle the cubes with salt, put them in a colander, and let them sit for 30 minutes, preferably 60. Rinse, drain, and pat dry.

Put two tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the eggplant, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden, about 10 minutes. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.

Whisk together the miso, soy, mirin, and vinegar in a serving bowl. Thin with a tablespoon or so of water if necessary. Add the eggplant, sprinkle with salt and cayenne, then toss. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve topped with the walnuts.

Spicy Stir-Fried Japanese Eggplant and Cucumber

I admit it. Stir-fries can be boring. Oil. Vegetables. Some protein. Cook. My life as a college student was defined by this simple recipe. It was easy, fast, and relatively healthy. After about 1000 of these dinners, and after I had done all the permutations of veg + meat I could think of, I abandoned the stir-fry, thinking I had moved on to much grander, more sophisticated meals.

How silly. Stir fries can be amazing. You just have to think a little creatively. And you have to know how to manipulate your herbs and spices. But really, they can be just as complex and "grand" as anything else on offer.

This certainly goes for the eggplant and cucumber stir fry I discovered on the Recipes for Health column (obviously Martha Shulman made the same conclusion I did about these kinds of dishes). Now, cucumber may not be the most obvious vegetable for stir-fries, but it works beautifully. If cooked just long enough, it retains just a bit of a firm crunch, but soaks up flavors and spice beautifully. And eggplant? Well, anything that has it usually gets my thumbs-up. This was no different. After just a few minutes in the pan, it'll soften into that wonderful silky texture, absolutely more-ish.

This dish probably works best as a side; however, I turned mine into a main (and it probably could have benefited from some tofu or shrimp to bulk it out as such). Feel free to experiment with the flavors on this one; you can't go wrong with boosting the ginger or spice content.

Ingredients
2 long Japanese eggplants (about 1 1/2 pounds)
Salt
2 long English cucumbers (or the equivalent in weight of Japanese or Persian cucumbers)
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt (more to taste)
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
2 tablespoons peanut or canola oil
2 tablespoons minced ginger
1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes (to taste)
3 tablespoons minced scallions or chives

Method
1. Trim off the ends of the eggplants. Cut in half lengthwise, then slice thin (about 1/4 inch). Lightly salt, and toss in a colander. Allow to sit for 15 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients. Squeeze out excess water, then dry between sheets of paper towel.

2. Meanwhile, trim off the ends of the cucumbers. Cut in half lengthwise, then slice on the diagonal into 1/4-inch thick slices.

3. Combine the rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, salt and sesame oil in a small bowl. Place all of the ingredients near your wok or frying pan.

4. Heat a 14-inch flat-bottomed wok or 12-inch steel skillet over high heat until a drop of water evaporates within a second or two from the surface of the pan. Add the peanut or canola oil to the sides of the pan and tilt the pan to distribute. Add the eggplant. Stir-fry for three to four minutes until cooked through. Add the ginger and red pepper flakes, and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the cucumbers and scallions or chives. Stir-fry 30 seconds. Add the soy sauce mixture to the wok, and stir-fry one minute until the cucumber just begins to wilt. Remove from the heat and serve.

Yield: Serves four as a side dish.

Baba Ghanoush

 You may have noticed a preponderance of eggplant/aubergine recipes. I can only blame the abundance of the farmer's market. Well, that and the fact that every time I go, my roommate goes as well at a different time. We both arrive home to realize that we have each purchased 3 eggplants. Which makes a total of 6 to get through. Which results in massive eggplant-related recipes. I've been wanting to make this one  for a while and it came out beautifully. The entire bowl of this was gone in 2 hours or less.
So maybe using up all those eggplants wasn't as much of a chore as I thought...

Makes about 3 cups

Ingredients

3 medium eggplants (about 4 pounds)

3 tbsp tahini (sesame paste)

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 ½ tbsp lime juice

2 tsp salt

2 tbsp finely chopped parsley

1 spring onion, chopped

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp harissa

½ tsp cayenne

½ cup Greek yogurt

Optional:

1 tbsp white truffle oil

2 tbsp sesame seed salad dressing

Preparation

Preheat an oven grill. With a paring knife, pierce the eggplants in several places. Place on a medium baking sheet and roast until skins are dark mahogany in color and flesh feels soft, about 50 minutes. Let stand until cool enough to handle. Split the eggplants, scoop the flesh into a colander, and press to extract excess liquid.

Transfer to a bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Stir or use a food processor to pulse until smooth. Taste and adjust the lime juice and salt.

Transfer to a serving bowl and serve with warm pita bread.

Spicy Stuffed Eggplants/Aubergines

 Ok, these didn't come out as pretty (or photogenic) as I wanted but trust me, they're delicious. I've made many a  "stuffed vegetable" recipe in my day, but these were wonderful as a vegetarian main course (if you skip the bacon). The buckwheat is a nice alternative to couscous or other starchy filling. While it's a bit grainy on its own, combine it with goat's cheese and you've got a win. It's also a great weeknight dinner recipe: while you're roasting the eggplants (sigh, or aubergine..I have a tendency to cook foods that have a UK/US noun difference) you can make the other parts of the recipe and be done in 30 minutes!

Serves 4

Takes 30 minutes, start to finish

Ingredients

2 large eggplants

Olive Oil

125g buckwheat (cooked according to package instructions)

zest and juice of ½ lime

3 tbsp harissa

10 cherry tomatoes, deseeded and finely chopped

handful chopped fresh flatleaf parsley

150g crumbled goat’s cheese

2 strips bacon (cooked)

Preparation

-Preheat the oven to 200C or fan180C. Halve the eggplants lengthways and place on a baking sheet. Drizzle with plenty of olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes or until tender

-Meanwhile, cook 125g buckwheat according to pack instructions. Stir in 2 tbsp olive oil, the zest and juice of ½ lime and the 3 tbsp of harissa. Deseed and finely chop the cherry tomatoes and stir into the buckwheat with a handful of chopped fresh flatleaf parsley and 150g crumbled goat’s cheese.

-Remove the eggplants from the oven and, once they’ve cooled a little, carefully scoop out the flesh and roughly chop. Stir into the buckwheat mixture and season well. Spoon the mixture back into the eggplant shells and return to the oven for 10-12 minutes.