Alright, ya pyro: next time you wanna roast an eggplant, leave it whole and then roast it until it's blackened and blistered and collapsing.
Then scoop the innards out, mash 'em up a bit, put them in a pot with a heavy tight lid, make yourself a cup out of an onion (trim the roots down flat, slice off about 1/4 from the top, scoop out all but the outermost couple-few layers) and put a 3-4 generous tablespoons of (liquid) ghee in it. Nestle the onion cup into the mashed eggplant.
Then go get yourself a couple small-enough-to-fit-inside-the-onion pieces of clean terra-cotta from a broken pot, or else a few clean large-olive-sized pebbles. Shove the terra-cotta or the stones into a fire until they're as hot as they're gonna get, and then drop them into your ghee-filled onion cup and slam on the lid. Wait 15 minutes.
Mince some cilantro (coriander) and maybe zest a lemon while you wait. When the time's up, take the lid off the pot, take the rocks/terra-cotta out of the onion cup, pour the ghee into the eggplant, sprinkle with cilantro, lemon zest if you want, and salt.
Consume however seems good to you, although you could do worse than to scoop it up with warm flatbread.
Oh and: if you haven't made a beurre blanc with deeply caramelized shallots? Do. It won't be blanc any more of course but it is incredibly tasty. Try it with a lightly grilled bit of firm white fish, or a scallop or two if you have some to thread on a skewer and show to the fire for a few seconds.
Wonderful! I forget and heavily burn a huge pan garden beets every summer (I usually burn them less then freeze them whole for winter and spring meals), and I always scrape and eat them right away.. But deliberate and substantive blackening, with intention, sounds wonderful. I can't wait to try it.
This recipe sounds delicious, I love to cook beets and often burn them accidentally! In your recipe, are the beets wrapped in foil or placed on a sheet pan or just put directly in the oven? Please clarify - thanks!
I did make this as a starter for Christmas dinner. It was a smash hit -and that was from the people I expected to be underwhelmed by a meatless dish. Thank you for this luxurious recipe.
Mais oui , bien sur ! The burned beets with the ketchup and I used sauerkraut instead of pickled onions because it’s pissing with rain here and it was all I had , it tasted just like steak tartare made with aged beef
I've just been writing about cooking over coals and a chef friend cane to mind. He'd been awarded something like Gourmet Traveller's Young Chef of the Year, but his thought on accolades was "I'm a chef. To degrees, I burn things for a living. "
Also laughed out loud on praise from Finns. In a past career one of my clients was Huhtamäki Oyj the global packaging giant. They were a very tough crowd.
This is giving me ideas... What do you think about leaving out the ketchup, using brine-soaked and dehydrated crispy pumpkin seeds, fermented red onions in lime, and piima cream?
Alright, ya pyro: next time you wanna roast an eggplant, leave it whole and then roast it until it's blackened and blistered and collapsing.
Then scoop the innards out, mash 'em up a bit, put them in a pot with a heavy tight lid, make yourself a cup out of an onion (trim the roots down flat, slice off about 1/4 from the top, scoop out all but the outermost couple-few layers) and put a 3-4 generous tablespoons of (liquid) ghee in it. Nestle the onion cup into the mashed eggplant.
Then go get yourself a couple small-enough-to-fit-inside-the-onion pieces of clean terra-cotta from a broken pot, or else a few clean large-olive-sized pebbles. Shove the terra-cotta or the stones into a fire until they're as hot as they're gonna get, and then drop them into your ghee-filled onion cup and slam on the lid. Wait 15 minutes.
Mince some cilantro (coriander) and maybe zest a lemon while you wait. When the time's up, take the lid off the pot, take the rocks/terra-cotta out of the onion cup, pour the ghee into the eggplant, sprinkle with cilantro, lemon zest if you want, and salt.
Consume however seems good to you, although you could do worse than to scoop it up with warm flatbread.
Oh and: if you haven't made a beurre blanc with deeply caramelized shallots? Do. It won't be blanc any more of course but it is incredibly tasty. Try it with a lightly grilled bit of firm white fish, or a scallop or two if you have some to thread on a skewer and show to the fire for a few seconds.
How long will this hold. I would love this for Christmas dinner but would need to prep at least 3 days in advance
Wonderful! I forget and heavily burn a huge pan garden beets every summer (I usually burn them less then freeze them whole for winter and spring meals), and I always scrape and eat them right away.. But deliberate and substantive blackening, with intention, sounds wonderful. I can't wait to try it.
This recipe sounds delicious, I love to cook beets and often burn them accidentally! In your recipe, are the beets wrapped in foil or placed on a sheet pan or just put directly in the oven? Please clarify - thanks!
I did make this as a starter for Christmas dinner. It was a smash hit -and that was from the people I expected to be underwhelmed by a meatless dish. Thank you for this luxurious recipe.
Definitely going to try this, I'll do it in the oven first, but when we next light the big Joe I think the BBQ smoke will really enhance the flavour.
It’s the texture that does it and the ketchup as a seasoning adds exactly the right amount of acidity
Mais oui , bien sur ! The burned beets with the ketchup and I used sauerkraut instead of pickled onions because it’s pissing with rain here and it was all I had , it tasted just like steak tartare made with aged beef
Damn this is good , didn’t stick to the vegan theme though , served it on a bed of oyster cream instead of sunflower !
I've just been writing about cooking over coals and a chef friend cane to mind. He'd been awarded something like Gourmet Traveller's Young Chef of the Year, but his thought on accolades was "I'm a chef. To degrees, I burn things for a living. "
Also laughed out loud on praise from Finns. In a past career one of my clients was Huhtamäki Oyj the global packaging giant. They were a very tough crowd.
This is giving me ideas... What do you think about leaving out the ketchup, using brine-soaked and dehydrated crispy pumpkin seeds, fermented red onions in lime, and piima cream?