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Sunday, September 20, 2015

Roasted Eggplant with Artichoke Hearts and Salsa Verde

I keep printing out this recipe and then losing it, and then I've got to search for it and find it again. So I'm tired of that and am posting it here.

Last summer, we had this probably ten times. This year, we haven't had as many eggplant, due to the lack of rain, but we've had it a few times, and it is always, always wonderful, if you have the right kind of eggplant. You absolutely must have really fresh eggplant, about as thin as you can get them, and with really soft, thin skin. The original recipe calls for Japanese eggplant, but we've found that really long, thin ones work best. Don't bother with the big purple ones you can usually get, unless you peel them, and it isn't as good even then. So this is really a late summer recipe, when the eggplants come in.

The recipe originally comes from Food 52.

Ingredients
  • About a pound of long, skinny eggplants, cut into ½ inch rounds
  • 1 small red onion, halved and sliced
    The original recipe says "quartered", but I like them bigger.
  • 6 ounces artichoke hearts
    The original recipe calls for marinated artichoke hearts, which you can also try, but I've used the straight variety successfully
  • 1 tbsp capers
  • 1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
  • 1 tbsp chives, chopped
    Juice from half a lemon
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/4 tsp salt
Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to 450F.
  2. Combine the first three ingredients in a baking dish, with enough olive oil to coat. You want to brown everything a bit, so spread them out as best you can. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn it all over and bake another 15-20.
  3. Combine the other ingredients to make a dressing. I've sometimes lightly chopped the capers, which seems to work pretty well. 
  4. Add the dressing to the eggplant mixture and serve.
The original recipe suggests using this as a topping for some kind of fish. If you do that, then I've found that a flaky whitefish (cod, scrod, haddock) is best. We've also just had it over rice, as a main course, with a side vegetable.