melanzana arrosto / roasted eggplant

I love melanzane and I liked them also as a child (when most vegetables were on my black list), maybe because my mother did not cook melanzane, so they had an aura of mystery around them.

Such love was not affected by the worst kitchen disaster that ever happened to me the first time I tried to roast a whole eggplant (una melanzana intera). One day, I decided to make baba ganoush, first tasted some years before in a Lebanese restaurant in Tangier, Morocco. I bought a big eggplant and put it in the hot oven. The recipe made it clear that I needed to pierce the eggplant before roasting it, but I overlooked the recommendation and what a price did I pay for my mistake! At some point, I heard a strange noise with an explosive component to it, and, upon opening the oven door, I was presented with a mess that left me speechless. You have no idea how many seeds there are in an eggplant until you see them scattered all over your oven, no idea how much pulp a plump eggplant has until you must retrieve every shred of it from the remotest corner of your oven. That was it for me and whole eggplants, until very recently, when I decided I could handle the roasting process again, confident that the painful memory of the unpierced eggplant would prevent me from repeating the mistake.

The recipe I used as inspiration for this comeback comes from my beloved "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" by Deborah Madison, and it is called Roasted Eggplant with Dill, Yogurt and Walnuts. The interesting thing is that it requires to stick slices of a garlic clove in 4-5 slits made on the eggplant, so there is no way one can forget to pierce the eggplant before roasting it. The roasting occurs at 425 F and takes 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the eggplant. When the melanzana arrosto is cool, remove the skin and seeds, then chop the pulp finely and mash with it a fork. Add some labneh and mix well. I have been making labneh regularly recently, using as little as one cup of plain non-fat yogurt, so I have a steady supply to use in various dishes.

In a mortar, pound one clove of garlic with some salt (2 if they are small or the eggplant is big)¹. Finely chop some fresh aneto (dill) and some toasted walnuts (I blanch walnuts and toast them in the oven in batches, because I use a lot of them, so I always have some in the fridge, ready for use). Add the seasoning to the roasted eggplant and labneh mix, and stir well. Sprinkle some salt and freshly-ground pepper, to taste. I don't measure the ingredients and prefer to adjust them based on the result of my tasting the final product. You can serve the melanzana as a spread (in which case you may want to make sure its consistency is creamy, maybe by adding a bit of olive oil) or as a side dish (in which case, a chunkier texture is fine).

¹ Addendum: I have made this recipe with roasted, mashed garlic instead of raw, pounded garlic and I personally liked it better. I would suggest this version if you prefer a less intense garlic flavor. Roast 2 unpeeled garlic cloves wrapped in foil for 15 minutes together with the eggplant. Once cooled, peel them and mash together with the eggplant pulp.

This is my contribution to the current edition of Fresh Produce of the Month, an event created by Marta, An Italian in the US, which I have the honor of hosting this month. Marta was actually one of the guests who tasted my first rendition of the dish.

Here is the roundup of the event.

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Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post: 

melanzana arrosto

or launch the melanzana arrosto audio file [mp3].

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Related articles

caponata di melanzane / eggplant caponata

Comments

[Laurie Constantino]

Great recipe from a great book! There are so many great eggplant spreads from the Mediterranean and I never get tired of trying all the variations.

[Lori Lynn @ Taste With The Eyes]

Oh boy, I could just visualize your oven, and thought, that is one time you would really appreciate a self-cleaning oven.

Your recipe sounds excellent, walnuts and eggplant seem to enhance each other.

My Nana, from Russia, made a roasted eggplant which she served with Jewish rye and butter. I crave it to this day, and have not been able to recreate it...

[Paz]

Oh my! I can't imagine an eggplant exploding in my oven. Yikes! The recipe you've featured looks delicious.

Paz

[Maryann]

I would have loved to see a picture of the exploded eggplant bomb after it desecrated your oven! haha
Hope all is well with you, Simona :)

[blorenzutta]

Ciao Simona. I recall my mom making melanzane.. but not with eggplant. They were long and green, and they were yummie. Mom would do fry them breadrumbed. Loved them on a breadroll. Bruno

[blorenzutta]

Sorry Simona, I should have checkd my statement.
My Mom used these long green slender vegetables and referred them as melanzane. She would slice them and breadcrumb them, then fry them. we would eat them with other veggies + meat or, just have them on a breadroll while they were hot and moist with oil. Bruno

[bee]

fantastic recipe. thanks, dear simona.

[Simona Carini]

Thanks Laurie. You are so right!

Now you got me curious about the dish you describe, Lori Lynn.

Thanks Paz. An exploded eggplant is something I definitely do not recommend experiencing, ever.

Hi Maryann. I was so shocked, I don't think I would have thought about taking photos.

What you describe, Bruno, sounds delicious. I wonder what they were. There are green long eggplant, though I have never seen them in the stores here.

You are welcome, Bee.

[Lisa]

How wonderful. Well, not the part about the explosion, sorry about that! But I just love roasted eggplant, and your dish looks and sounds SO good to me.

Coincidentally, this morning I made a roasted eggplant soup with lentils that I saw on another blog recently. It has a garnish of lightly whipped cream, and I'd planned to mention, when I do a post about it, that labneh would also work very well. Roasted eggplant, labneh -- are we on the same wavelength, or what?!

I need to try this recipe soon. Thanks for the great idea. I must also get Madison's cookbook; I think I would love it.

[Jeremy Parzen]

Great post! It makes me think of Michael Franks' song "Eggplant" from the Art of Tea and Artusi's inspired passages about the fruit. Great post...

[dave]

Simona:
Questo suono come un ricetta grande. Especially for someone unfamiliar with melanzana.
Will you share your method for blanching noci, and do you let them dry before baking?
grazie.

[Simona Carini]

Lisa, I look forward to reading your post on the soup: it sounds lovely. Indeed, same wavelength. I have another small batch of labneh in the making. I love the book: it is basically always on the counter, ready to be consulted.

Thanks Jeremy for the song suggestion: neat. I should also see if I can make something from the Artusi with eggplant.

Grazie, Dave. For walnuts I follow Deborah Madison's method, as described in the same book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I mentioned the method in this article: http://www.northcoastjournal.com/issues/2008/03/20/rocciata/

[Susan]

Oven doors should really be made with the hinges on the side rather than on the bottom, the better to reach those nooks and crannies.

Beautiful savory, Simona. It makes me want to go out and get another sack of eggplants at the farmers market.

[Simona Carini]

Interesting idea about the oven, Susan. I hope fresh eggplants will still be available for a while at the farmers' market.