Aubergines/eggplants–are piled high on the market stalls at the moment and I’m ever on the lookout for new ways to cook them.
Beautiful shiny black, purple and even white torpedoes, these enigmatic vegetables have always felt a bit daunting to me–where does one start!
Well yesterday I started with Nigel Slater’s heavy tome Tender (weighs in at 4 lbs).
He’s an English cookery writer with an air of the solitary about him and a touch of genius, who wrote about his childhood in a book called Toast.
Tender is the story of his urban London vegetable garden:
As the church bells chimed New Year’s Eve and fireworks lit up the night sky, I vowed to dig up my lawn and grow at least some of my own vegetables.
So far I’ve not dug deeply into it. Time to look again.
The section on aubergines is extensive–and this simple recipe leapt out at me.
We had these last night as a light supper with green beans (their ubiquity is beginning to cause comment!).
for two
1 large aubergine/eggplant–sliced carefully into rounds about a 1.5 cm/.75″ thick
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves of garlic–thinly sliced
1lb/450gms tomatoes–cut up with their juice
1 dried red chili–chopped roughly
salt and pepper
more olive oil as you need it
4 tablespoons grated parmesan
- salt the aubergines and leave them to drain for an hour or so.
set the oven at 220C/425F
- Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan and soften the garlic–about 30 seconds.
- Put in the tomatoes and the chili, season and cook over a medium high heat until you have a sauce–stirring often.
- Line a shallow oven tray with foil and brush it lightly with oil.
- Brush the aubergine rounds with olive oil.
- Arrange them on the tray and bake in the upper part of the oven until soft (undercooked aubs are un-eatable!)–-15-20 minutes–turning them over after 10 minutes.
- Pile some sauce on each round–be generous–and top with some parmesan.
- Put the tray back in the oven for 15 minutes.
- the rounds should come out–as Nigel puts it—sizzling!
This is how much we liked them..!
Robin Ellis 
Hi Robin, We have lots of Aubergines arriving in our garden here in Southern Oregon. We love to grill 1/2 inch slices with olive oil and some espelette pepper on them. Your recipe looks like fun too! My friend and I have just started watching the “Moonstone” series and are captivated. Of course our introduction to you was as Ross Poldark! Love your work, was there ever a DVD made of role in “Bel Ami”? A fan and fellow foodie, Charlie
Thank you Charlie–your simple grill sounds good.
Not sure Bel Ami made it to DVD.
I have fond memories and some photos of the red perm the make-up department saddled me with!
This sounds very tasted Robin,though I have to admit I am always a little in awe of Aubergines, never quite know how to tackle them, so your dish will be a great help,I will give them ago
Sorry I meant to type tasty fingers misbehaving again
I thought my aubergines were goners with the extreme heat this summer. But as the monsoon rains became more frequent, they are coming back. Woo Hoo! Mine are the long narrow Japanese variety. My favorite thing is to make stir-fried curry. However, I have just enough roma tomatoes today to make this dish. I will slice them at an angle and have eggplant ovals. Can’t wait.
Ohh I love this food! Is one of my favourite and its a typical old Tuscanys recipe. My daddy cooked few days ago! Thank you!
TIM: la tua mail in mobilità con il BlackBerry®
Man that looks good! I adore egglplant (aubergines) I love eggplant parm and I have developed a baked version It’s really rather similar to what you made- yours was deconstructed. I once bought roasted eggplant slices from a famous Italian speciality shop here in Baltimore – I am pretty sure they were baked and not fried. They were SOOOO GOOD! Very pungent with lots of garlic.They were char grilled. I will have to find a way to recreate them. Heaven’s it is lunchtime here in Maryland and I am dreaming of auburgines! Now you got me on a roll, Robin! Gotta satisfy this craving!
What, no basil?
We’ve had some bad luck with cooking eggplant at home. Never turns out quite right and sometimes tremendously awful…I recall a scene once that involved the garbage disposal running for quite a good long time, tears, and emergency Chinese food delivery.
This simple recipe inspires me to try again….with basil.
Go basil!
Ooh, Robin, this recipe’s definitely on for lunch tomorrow! One question before shopping, though–does the chili make it spicy? And how do you buy “dried” red chili–in the regular veg. department, or with the spices? (Sorry if I sound thick, but I never use ’em!)
Thanks!
The chili peps up the sauce a bit, Dianne. It can be dried, fresh or powder.Dried chili are usually kept with the other bottled spices. Remove the seeds for a less spicy effect but wash your hands afterwards!
Had an AWESOME dinner tonight, Robin! Now our tray looks like yours. 🙂 (I always forget to take a picture of it until we’re done!) Could only get the dried chili in a huge bag, so I subbed 1/2 tsp. of chili powder–that was strong enough to put some kick into it. I think this would be nice topped onto some thick layers of grilled French bread, too. (Or a healthier rye?) Thanks for the recipe!
They must be tasty if none are left on the plate!
The recipe was delicious, my first-ever try with eggplant. I was pretty excited about that. It tasted fantastic and the “after” photo looked exactly like yours, I’m proud to say. Thanks for empowering this aubergine-phobic cook to a new plateau of accomplishment and dining enjoyment.
Wonderful–I’m so happy for you Carol!–more aub recipes in prep. Watch out!
Once again your recipe meshed perfectly with our Farm Direct Coop offerings, even down to the green beans! I made this tonight, and it was SO much better than heavy Eggplant Parm in this warm weather. Also, glad to hear you and Meredith liked my article! I wanted to “give back” a little something in exchange for all the tasty, healthy recipes and amusing stories you share so generously with all of us.
I tried your recipe and added mozzarella cheese for the gooey effect. Superb! Thx, Robin.
Oh Robin, my husband loves your blog as he gets to eat new and wonderful recipes like this one. Made this as a “starter” for dinner last night and we inhaled the rounds as they were so delicious. Thanks for another great recipe!!
I’m working through your aubergine recipes, and some more I have found, however I refuse to add a tape measure to my kitchen tools
Fair enough! I liked the juxtaposition in the photo.