Bruschetta with Red Wine Fig Compote, Japanese Eggplant with Red Curry, Simply Wilted Bok Choy
Green Plum Cooking School – Saturday, July 10th, 2010
“We already did that one,” Megan says to me, aghast, when I tell her what recipe we’re doing for the Green Plum cooking class this Saturday. I just hired Megan to be my kitchen assistant. She reminds me that it was the class I did on the day that I met her and hired her on the spot. I liked her spunk then, but now I’m being spunk-ed. It was less than a month ago and I have absolutely NO memory of doing Armenian Eggplant. “Wow, really?” I guess I don’t remember it because I didn’t even blog about it (sorry, folks).
The Secret Garden has some gorgeous Japanese eggplant right now and Chinese chives. Well, there’s more than one way to cook eggplant. I like to cook eggplant…the right way. Most people, including my own kitchen crew, don’t cook it right — that is, they don’t use enough oil. Eggplant doesn’t cook to caramelized goodness without a lot of oil. What I like about the Armenian eggplant salad is that we use the cooking oil that is used in sautéeing the eggplant as the oil part of the vinaigrette. We season the cooked eggplant with champagne vinegar, cinnamon, and lots of parsley. The cinnamon adds that je ne sais quoi-thingy I love. I also add olives because I like cinnamon with green olives. That’s not Armenian, but I’m not Armenian, so…je ne sais quoi.
I’m still going to do eggplant; however, I’m going to cut it differently and keep it simple.
I’ve just gotten off my Central Market cookbook tour: five Texas cities in five days. No wonder Lindsay Lohan is in jail — life on the road is tough. I found out the hard way that Big D either doesn’t know me or doesn’t like me. However, Ft. Worth wanted to take me home with them! Or at least out to dinner. One Ft. Worth-ian said that Dallas is about trendy and Ft. Worth is about tradition. Hmmmm.
So, for this class, the first thing I’m going to do is a bruschetta. Our growers have figs right now and The Houston Dairymaids have some Pure Luck Ste. Maure (an ash rind goat that is similar to a Bucheron) and SlowDough Bread Co. has some ciabatta. So, I am going to make a jammy Red Wine Fig Compote. Typically, I make this recipe with honey and lavender as a topping for a Provencal-style sundae with caramel semi-freddo and balsamic syrup. Today, I am going to go savory with it for the bruschetta. I tell the audience that they could also add some mustard seed or some ginger for a little heat, but you don’t have to. I’m thinking it would be great with our walnut bread, but I’m not sure I say it out loud. I seem to be jet-lagged even though I never left the Texas time zone. I’m really not cut out for the cookbook tour circuit.
Pure Luck's Ste. Maure
We start by cutting the figs into eighths. Usually, I make this recipe chunkier and more syrupy for the sundae, but here I want to cook all the ingredients down into a tighter, more chopped jam to spread onto our slipper bread and top it with the aged goat cheese. I add honey, water, lemon zest and dried lavender to the pot and let it cook down. Megan is cutting small, but thick-ish slices of ciabatta for each bruschetta.
While the fig jam is jamming, I start to work on the eggplant dish that has no country of origin in particular. I cut the eggplant in half and score the cut side, about four slashes in one direction and four slashes in the other. I do this because I like the way it looks after they’re cooked but it also helps the cooking process a little, too. I use this same method with scallops (the big ones) because I want a good sear and I want them cooked through. Back to our eggplant — I don’t salt them because these are not bitter. We salt eggplant and certain other vegetables when we want to get rid of some of the bitterness, but this local stuff is usually harvested at the right time and doesn’t get bitter. This little Japanese eggplant variety, when sliced thin and eaten raw, tastes like a Granny Smith apple. It turns out that this is why they are called “the Japanese apple” in most Asian cultures.
Eggplant benefits from cooking with oil. I hate steamed eggplant. I love charred eggplant, pureed with the charred skin still on to give it a smoky flavor. I love caramelized eggplant when it gets chewy and rich and creamy. I place the cut and scored eggplants in the hot pan with Grape Seed oil, our neutral oil of choice. In this case, if we wanted to honor our Asian variety of eggplant, we could go with a little sesame oil. I test the eggplant for doneness by sticking a little paring knife in the body of the eggplant — if it goes in easily, it’s done. I do cook them on both sides; I like how the inside of the eggplant shrivels and lightens in color to its usual pale grey color. I am going to cut the eggplant using the karate chop method (an audience member actually offers this description as I am demonstrating in the air how to cut on the bias, and then alternating cuts on the opposing bias).
Eggplant - "karate chop" method
I talk a bit about my online cookbook (I’ve had plenty of practice doing that for the last week). People have a hard time grasping a cookbook they can’t hold — in a nutshell, this online book moves, changes, grows and even shops for you (well, it will generate your shopping lists and organize all your shopping needs, down to pairing the food with wine, at least!). We add recipes every month, many of which I’ve demonstrated in this class, including today’s recipes.
I send Megan downstairs to the Green Plum Kitchen table to get some red curry paste. This is always handy to have around – this curry paste uses whole spices, ginger, garlic, lime and fresh herbs and is a fantastic jump-starter to any meal; you can add it to broths or coconut milk or yogurt or aioli or use it as a marinade for just about any protein. It adds zip to just about anything. I always have some in my refrigerator. Come to think of it, I have fig jam in my refrigerator, too.
It’s getting hotter up here – our AC isn’t working. It’s making me a little loopy. Well, loopier than usual.
We talk about Asian vegetables – Should long beans be cooked longer? Why is bitter melon so bitter? I am cutting our bok choy right now and it has a wonderful mustard-y flavor in its raw state. Our Japanese eggplant tastes like a Granny Smith apple when eaten raw. Put them together and this sounds like a great salad with a little sesame oil and a touch of rice wine vinegar.
Just as I’m cutting a tender bok choy bulb, my ceramic knife breaks. Wow, there goes my ceramic knife deal. Everyone always asks about my All-Clad pans and my ceramic knives — all were given to me and all are great for this class. The two-quart saucepans conduct heat evenly and I can use them to sauté or make soup or sauces (anything, really); the knives never have to be sharpened and I can pass them to a child (or an adult I don’t know) and pretty safely bet they won’t hurt themselves. I wouldn’t use them in the kitchen all day, but I did use them when I was on Top Chef Masters (if you remember from the show, Carmen brought a new knife with her and she cut part of her finger off on the first challenge).
The finished Eggplant Dish
I finish the eggplant with a thinned-out red curry paste and the bruschetta is ready. I steam the bok choy a little, just until wilted. Despite the heat, everyone cleans their bamboo plates.
