Eggplant

The secret of Hélène’s ratatouille is to cook the vegetables separately in the oven, intensifying their individual flavors. This may seem like using a lot of pans, but it is mostly waiting time. She assured me, “You can just let vegetables cook themselves and gently stir them all together.” The word “ratatouille” is related to the word touiller and the Latin tudiculare, meaning “to stir,” “crush,” or “toss.” After being cooked, the vegetables were originally assembled in a rectangular earthenware tian casserole, then gratinéed, and served hot or cold on the Sabbath. Now the cooked eggplant, pepper, zucchini, and tomato may be served together, or separately as individual salads. Ratatouille is similar to the Middle Eastern and North African dish tchoukchouka (see page 94), meaning “to shake up,” in both Hebrew and Arabic, and to other very old Mediterranean dishes of zucchini and eggplant. Hélène seasons her version with a hot but not fiery Basque pepper called piment d’Espelette, from Espelette, a town near her native Toulouse. If you don’t have piment d’Espelette, you can use hot paprika or New Mexico red chili powder.

For Women, cookbook are often memories of their mothers. Daisy Taïeb, the mother of two daughters, wrote Les Fêtes Juives à Tunis Racontées à Mes Filles (Jewish Holidays in Tunis as Told to My Daughters). “My daughters wanted to learn the religious customs in Tunis, like the fète des filles, a festival where the girls go to the synagogue all in white,” she told me. “Soon, with rapid Frenchification and assimilation, you will be able to learn about these traditions only in museums.” One day when I was in Nice, I watched Madame Taïeb cook her famous meatballs stuffed into vegetables. She was making them for Friday night dinner, to serve with couscous. Though I had expected a quiet, grandmotherly woman, I found her to be a trim, stylish lady who had taken the Dale Carnegie course on public speaking. She is the president of the French version of the Jewish Federation in Nice, and the representative of B’nai B’rith on the Côte d’Azur. These days, Madame Taïeb, who has lived alone since her husband’s death, invites people in for Sabbath dinner. “In Tunisia, you have the same foods as in Nice— fish, vegetables, spices— so it is not difficult to make the recipes,” she told me. “But you have to use your hands to judge, not your eyes, when making meatballs.” For Madame Taïeb, couscous with meatballs stuffed into peppers, artichoke bottoms, and eggplants, one of my favorite dishes, is symbolic of family, remembrance, and Friday night dinners.

When we were visiting Galimard, one of the perfume factories in Grasse, our guide was an adorable young French girl with huge hazel eyes named Cyrielle Charpentier. After we finished the tour, learning about the flowers from around Grasse that go into perfumes, Cyrielle let us try some of the essences. Noticing a chai, the Jewish symbol for “life,” on a chain around her neck, we asked her if she was Jewish, and she said that she was. Her father, a Holocaust survivor, and her mother, an Italian Jew who also suffered during the war, lived near Grasse. When I asked her what foods she liked, she immediately named her grandmother’s tchoukchouka, a North African dish with tomatoes, peppers, and sometimes eggplant. The purists’ versions of tchoukchouka, this salade cuite, include lots of garlic and no onions, but I have seen some with onions as well. The beauty of this delicious recipe is that it is prepared in advance and tastes even better the next day, especially helpful for the Sabbath and other Jewish holidays, when cooking is prohibited and there is little time to prepare food—you do not have to fuss with a last-minute salad. It can also be used as a base for an egg or sausage dish, and is great as a sauce over pasta.

The French call this appetizer caviar d’aubergine because the feel of the eggplant seeds on your tongue is similar in texture to that of fish eggs. A delicious and easy-to-prepare dish, it has been in the French Jewish repertoire since at least the turn of the last century, when Romanian immigrants introduced the French to their ways of grilling the eggplant with its dark skin intact, a technique learned in the Middle East via the Caucasus. At about the same time, Russian and Romanian immigrants also brought this so-called poor man’s caviar with them to France. Whereas earlier generations used a hand chopper to make this dish, often blending in either lemon juice and olive oil or tomatoes and green peppers, today most cooks pulse it in a food processor. Although it is easier to roast the eggplants in the oven, oven- roasting will not give you the smoky flavor that comes from grilling over an open flame. This is a recipe to play with. Add diced onion, cilantro, or paprika, if you wish, or a few tablespoons of grapefruit juice or even mayonnaise. I have tasted all kinds of eggplant caviar. The last was at a very upscale French Bat Mitzvah, where the eggplant, laced with pesto, spiced with cumin, and decorated with tiny pansies, was served in an eggshell at the Kiddush after the service.

This is a richer, nuttier variation on the last recipe.

Eggplants come in so many sizes and shapes. You may use 4 of the purple “baby” Italian eggplants (aim for 1 1/4 pounds), 4 Japanese eggplants, or 8 of the very small Indian ones. All are quartered partially—the top, sepal end always stays attached so the eggplants retain their shape—and then stuffed with a spice mixture before being cooked. For the mixture to hold, a little starch needs to be added. In India, this is the very nutritious chickpea flour. You may use cornmeal or masa harina instead if you have them at hand. All will need to be slightly roasted first. This is easily done in a small cast-iron frying pan. This very gratifying dish may be served as a main course, along with a green vegetable, some dal (such as Black Beans), rice, and a yogurt relish. It would also go well with hearty chicken and lamb curries.

Although Indians do not eat appetizer courses as such, there are many Indian dishes that can be served as a first course. This eggplant dish is one of them. I often serve it that way, with a slice of French bread on the side and some Pinot Grigio to polish it off. You can, of course, also serve it as the vegetable dish with the main course. (I love it with the Tandoori-Style Duck Breasts, page 103.)

Here you simply marinate eggplant slices in a spicy dressing and then grill them. When serving (hot or cold), spoon a dollop of yogurt seasoned with fresh mint on the top. It is cool and refreshing.

A famous North African specialty with an exciting bittersweet flavor.

The eggplants are usually fried, but for those who want to broil them, that too can be done, as they are then cooked further in a tomato sauce.

This Syrian recipe which combines bulgur with eggplants and the salty, chewy halumi cheese makes a lovely vegetarian main dish.

Chicken may be used instead of meat. Serve with plain rice steamed in the Persian manner (page 338) or the quick and easy boiled and steamed rice (page 339). The eggplants are usually deep-fried, but in this instance it is as good to broil or grill them, as they get stewed as well. If you don’t fry them, it is not really important to salt them (see page 289).

This famous Turkish dish is served as a cold appetizer or first course. Conflicting stories are told about the origin of its name, which means “the Imam fainted.” Some say it came about when an imam (Muslim priest) fainted with pleasure on being served it by his wife. Others believe that the Imam fainted when he heard how expensive the ingredients were, and how much olive oil had gone into the making. The dish is part of the range of zeytinyagli (cooked in olive oil) dishes Turkey is famous for. It can be cooked in a saucepan or in the oven.

These eggplants—the Turkish name means “slashed belly”—represent a main dish to be served hot with a rice or bulgur pilaf. The Syrian and Lebanese version is with the meat filling on page 306.

A Persian filling of meat and rice with yellow split peas is cooked in a sweet-and-sour sauce and served hot with plain rice.

This Syrian and Lebanese dish, for which the city of Damascus is famous, is complex and requires time, but it is not difficult and it has dramatic appeal, with different layers of texture and flavor. There are those who prefer deep-frying the stuffed eggplants and the bread, and those who stew the eggplants in tomato sauce and toast the bread instead of frying. I have tried both ways and found them both delicious. A little sour-pomegranate concentrate gives a brown color and sweet-and-sour flavor to the tomato sauce.

This is one of my favorite ways of cooking vegetables for a dinner party. You can do most of it in advance and put them in the oven again 1/2–3/4 hour before serving.

This famously Greek dish is to be found throughout the Arab world without the creamy topping. Broiling or grilling instead of frying the eggplants makes for a lighter and lovelier moussaka. This one is made upof a layer of eggplants, a layer of meat and tomatoes, and a layer of cheesy white (béchamel-type) sauce. Serve with salad and yogurt.

I love this Moroccan salad. The eggplants are boiled, not fried, so it is not oily. It is best made several hours in advance so that the flavors have time to penetrate.

This is very popular in Iran. A similar recipe, called buran, is to be found in al-Baghdadi’s thirteenth-century cookery manual (see appendix). There, fried meatballs are added to the puree, and the dish is seasoned with ground cumin and cinnamon.

This is a popular mezze in every Arab country and a regular companion to falafel. You will always find it in Lebanese and Egyptian restaurants in the West, and even in supermarkets. The smoky flavor of the eggplant and the nutty taste of tahina sharpened by lemon and garlic make a seductive combination.

This dish is traditionally made with fried eggplants, but I like to roast them whole and then peel them and cut them into pieces. Serve them hot or cold.

The dressing of pomegranate molasses and vinegar gives the eggplant slices a sweet-and-sour flavor. Serve them hot or cold, with the yogurt and tahini topping at room temperature.