Meatballs with winter vegetables

I always enjoy meat balls in any shape or form.  If you have some meat balls and tomato pasta sauce already prepared this is a very quick meal for an evening when you are late home, and a meal that focuses on winter vegetables.  You could serve it with wholegrain rice or pasta, or have it alone
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Ingredients

20 beef meat balls
1 cup tomato pasta sauce
0.5 turnip
0.5 swede
1 leek
1.5 cups broccoli
Olive oil
Shaved Parmesan

Mode

Peel the turnip and swede and slice
Clean and peel the leek and slice finely
Break the broccoli into flowerlets
Heat the olive oil in a wok
Add themeat balls and leek
Stirfry quickly until the leek is tender
Add the vegetables and stirfry a while longer
Pour on the tomato sauce and stir through the other ingredients
Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer using a simmer plate if needed
Simmer for about 15-20 minutes stirring occasionally
Serve with shaved Parmesan.

Octopus and bocconcini salad

The smell of Spring in the air and some warmer weather have made my mind turn to salads. This one was one pulled together from ingredients on hand.  The pickled octopus I had was in a dressing which I used.  If you want to add another or more dressing add one of your choice.

Ingredients

210 gr bocconcini
3 tomatoes
1 Lebanese cucumber
150 gr grilled baby octopus
2 small carrots
1/2 green pepper

Mode

Drain the bocconcini, cut in half and place in salad bowl
Wash the tomatoes, cut in wedges and add to the cheese
Slice the cucumber lengthwise and then crosswise and add to bowl
Peel and slice carrots and add
Cut and seed pepper, cut into bite size strips and add
Add baby octopus and its dressing .
Serves two

Chia, tahini and kefir

Chia, tahini and kefir indeed, but also currants, dried figs and raspberries are combined in this delicious breakfast.  Yes, you have to have a bit of forethought and prepare it the night before.  But the five minutes preparation the night before is well worth the effort. 

This is another breakfast in my series of "Breakfasts without Bread" for those of my friends who believe that there cannot be breakfast without bread! The amounts, where specified, are for one serve. The photo above is of the breakfast ready to eat, and that below was taken just after the ingredients had been put together.

 

Ingredients

2 dessertspoons chia seeds
2 tsp tahini
2 dried figs
Kefir
Currants
Raspberries

Mode

Place the chia seeds in a bowl for an individual serving
Add the tahini and stir to combine well
Chop figs roughly and add
Pour on enough kefir to fill the bowl
Stir to combine, making sure the chia is not in a pocket
Top with a few raspberries (frozen or fresh)
Sprinkle with currants
Place in the refrigerator overnight

Salmon pie

Earlier in the year when I was doing a FutureLearn course, I experimented with making a couple of Elizabethan vegetable pies. This time I decided to experiment by making a pie which contained salmon as well as vegetables and using verjuice as before and Dijonaise rather than butter. This pie didn't have the richness from the butter but the more delicate flavours allowed the salmon to be tasted more.


 

Ingredients

250 gr salmon fillet with skin
1 carrot
2 cauliflower flowers
2 handfuls frozen baby peas
2 tbs verjuice
1 tbs Dijonnaise
Puff pastry

Mode

Preheat the oven to 180c
Remove the pastry to thaw to room temperature if frozen
Chop the carrots as you wish and add to baking dish
Break the cauliflower into florets and add
Add the Dijonnaise and stir
Microwave the carrot and cauliflower for 1 minute (or steam lightly)
Make space in the middle and place the salmon fillet there
Add frozen peas
Pour over verjuice
Cover the pie dish with a sheet of puff pastry and decorate as desired
Pierce the top in a few places
Cook in the oven for 45 minutes

Bocconcini and cannellini salad

With a feeling that Spring will be here soon and that I need to stop eating heavy wintry foods, I put together this delicious salad for lunch the other day. The key ingredients are the cannellini beans and the bocconcini. The bocconcini which were fresh and delicious provided a soft touch to the palate in contrast to the beans.  And, of course, the basil, ginger and garlic added some of my favourite flavours to the mix.

Ingredients

210 gr bocconcini
400 gr cannellini beans
10 cherry tomatoes
1.5 Lebanese cucumbers
1/2 red pepper
Fresh basil to taste
2 tsp ginger
2 cloves garlic

Mode

Drain the bocconcini and place in a salad bowl
Drain the cannellini and add
Halve the cherry tomatoes and add
Roughly chop the red pepper and cucumbers as you wish and add
Peel and crush the garlic and ginger and add
Chop the basil and add
Toss to combine thoroughly and consume.

Potatoes and garlic roasted in truffle oil

My nephew often gives me interesting little treats to cook with. When I am wondering what to cook and how, casting my eye around often provides a solution. It certainly did last night when I was thinking about roasting potatoes and saw the truffle oil.  It was all very simple, but I loved the outcome.

Ingredients

Potatoes
Garlic cloves
Truffle oil
Rosemary sprigs

Mode

Preheat oven to 200c
Chop potatoes into eighths
Arrange in oven dish
Separate garlic cloves but do not peel
Place in dish with potatoes
Pour on truffle oil
With your hands ensure that the vegetables are covered in oil
Place high in the oven for 45 minutes, stirring halfway through
Add sprigs of rosemary and return to the oven for another 20 minutes.

Seskoulopitta/Σεσκουλόπιττα with ginger and black sesame

This is an old, old favourite just tweaked slightly to cater for the misery that is a headcold. Sometimes I include  the thick white stalks of the σέσκουλο/silverbeet.  Sometimes I don't.  This time I did. I normally include spring onions but this time I thought the silverbeet stalks would provide quite a bit of bulk, so I didn't use spring onions.  And the real difference? Well, I added lashings of fresh root ginger to help fight my cold.  And also because I love the taste of fresh ginger and I felt like some. What is there not to relish about this combination of so many of my favourite flavours!

Ingredients

1/2 bunch of silverbeet
375 gr ricotta
200gr fetta
2 handfuls grated Parmesan
1 egg
1/2 tsp Sambal oelek
2 garlic cloves
3 tsp fresh ginger
Phyllo pastry
Olive oil
Black sesame seeds

Mode

Preheat the oven to 180c
Roughly chop the silverbeet, including the thick white stalks
Place the silverbeet in a steamer
Peel and crush the garlic and add
Add Sambal oelek
Chop and crush the ginger root and add
Steam on the stovetop until soft stirring occasionally
Meanwhile place the ricotta in a bowl
Crumble the fetta by hand on top and add a couple of handfuls of grated Parmesan (or to taste)
Add the egg and stir to combine
When the vegetables are cooked add to the mixture and combine well
Using a pastry brush and olive oil line the bottom of a baking dish with about six layers of phyllo taking care to oil well between each layer
Add the cheese and vegetable mixture to the phyllo
Fold the phyllo over the mixture and cover with several layers of phyllo brushing with oil between each layer
Fold in the edges and oil the top layer
Sprinkle with black sesame seeds
With a sharp knife cut the top of the pie into desired portions. DO NOT cut through the bottom of the pie
Cook for 45 minutes in 180c oven until top is crisp and golden
Leave to rest for 2-3 minutes after cooking
Then with a sharp knife cut the portions through to the bottom of the pie
Serve with salad or vegetables..

Barley soup for George IV #FLRoyalFood

This final recipe for my FutureLearn course is actually from Week 4, not Week 5.  For some reason in my local area there was a dearth of barley when I went looking for it initially - just an empty space on the shelves! The soup is essentially barley and beef stock and some greens and seasonings. We know from preserved menus that this is something that George IV ate when he was confined to his rooms at Kew Palace and only allowed to eat with a spoon.

 

I added spring onions and baby bok choi for the onion and greens, and pepper, garlic and ginger for the seasonings.  The original recipe suggested adding a handful of raisins, but I added dried grapes which probably did not have such a strong flavour. And the verdict?  Well, it could certainly be eaten with a spoon and it was fairly solid and nourishing. It tasted pleasantly enough, but I think I would prefer some stronger tasting greens and perhaps more ginger or chilli.  But I guess it was meant to be invalid food.

 

Ingredients

1 litre beef stock
250 gr pearl barley
4 spring onions
1 head baby bok choi
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp crushed ginger
Handful dried grapes
Pepper




Mode

Place the stock in a large pan suitable for making soup
Add the barley to the cold stock and bring to a boil
Reduce to a simmer and continue cooking for 45-60 minutes until stock is reduced and barley tender
Meanwhile chop the sping onions and bok choi
Crush the garlic and ginger
Remove the grapes from their stalks
Add the greens, garlic, ginger and grapes to the soup mixture
Grind some pepper on top
Stir to combine and simmer until the vegetables are cooked.
Serve with a spoon.

Stir-fried vegetables with pickled octopus

After all the rich and rather heavy royal food I have been cooking and digesting for a few weeks, I felt like something light and filled with vegetables. This stir-fry of vegetables and pickled octopus hit the spot exactly and emerged simply because the ingredients were on hand. I ate mine with gnocchi as I had a yearning for some, but it is great with rice or noodles or alone.

Ingredients

3 tbs extra virgin coconut oil
1 bulb pak choi
2 spring onions
1 carrot
1 flower cauliflower
2 cloves garlic
3 tsp chopped ginger
2 tsp Thai sweet chilli sauce
150 gr pickled baby octopus


Mode

Clean the spring onion and slice
Peel the carrot and slice
Roughly chop the pak choi
Break the cauliflower into bite size flowerets
Place the oil in a pan to heat
Add the vegetables and stir to coat with oil
Add the octopus and stir to combine
Crush the garlic and add
Chop the ginger and add
Add the chilli sauce and stir to combine
Stir constantly until cooked to a crunchy consistency
Serve with rice or noodles.

Curry of chickens, à l'Indienne #FLRoyalFood

This is another recipe inspired by the FutureLearn course. Apparently curries were much favoured in Victorian times and almost always on the menu for Queen Victoria's meals. We were given a recipe for chicken curry but were able to use a modern prepared curry paste as apparently in Victorian times cooks were faced with a bewildering array of proprietary curry pastes.  As my pantry seems to have an equally bewildering array, I just chose the first one that came to hand. The major ingredient listed for this curry paste is "spices", so I am none the wiser about its major components.

Proportions in the original recipe were a bit obscure, though they did call for two heads of celery and three onions. I used less of the onions and celery and more of the stock, garlic and curry paste. The extra stock and fewer vegetables as well as the fact that I didn't sieve the resultant sauce meant that my sauce was quite light.  It tasted very nice, but for the authentic look and taste I should have sieved (or food-processed) the sauce. Maybe next time.  However, the overall exoerience and taste was very pleasant, if not correctly authentic.

Ingredients

750 gr chicken thighs
Butter
2 onions
1/2 head of celery
2 cloves garlic
Parsley
Mace
Clove powder
1 tbs flour
2 tbs curry paste
1 litre chicken stock

Mode

Melt butter in pan
Chop onions and parsley roughly
Add to butter and stir until coated
Chop parsley and add
Add mace and clove powder
Stir all to combine and continue cooking until the vegetables have softened
Add the curry paste and stir to combine, likewise the flour
Pour over the chicken stock and stir
Bring the mixture to the boil
Meanwhile chop the chicken thighs into bite size pieces
Melt butter in another large pan
Lightly fry the chicken turning regularly until the pieces are sealed
Add the sauce mixture to the chicken and combine
Bring to the boil and along to boil for a short period
Then reduce to a simmer and simmer until all is tender and the flavours are combined.  

Chocolate with almond, ginger and cayenne #FLRoyalFood

While I continue my hunt for stocks of barley for the Week 4 Barley soup experiment, here's another experiment in Georgian chocolate. Although I enjoyed the one I made last week, I really could only drink it as a special treat as I found it so rich.  This one is simpler with fewer flavours and no cream.  It is simply water, chocolate, almond meal, ginger and cayenne.  But what a delicious combination!  The chocolate does have some vanilla and sugar in it so that is part of the mix.  It is certainly a nice mid-morning drink for a chilly Melbourne winter day.

Ingredients

30 gr Lindt 90% chocolate (with sugar and vanilla)
1 tbs almond meal
1/2 tsp chopped ginger root
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 cup boiling water


Mode

Place the almond meal in a small dish
Add chopped ginger root
Sprinkle with cayenne
Stir to combine and leave to absorb flavours
Break the chocolote into pieces and set aside
Boil the water in a briki and turn down the heat
Add chocolate and stir until dissolved
Add the almond meal mixture
Stir to combine well
Whisk and pour into a teacup to serve.

Anne's "Georgian" chocolate

My Futurelearn course this week is focusing on the time of George I and one of the topics under discussion has been his personal chocolate maker and the role of chocolate, that exotic import, in royal and palace life. I have many pictures in my mind of languorous women in Georgette Heyer sipping chocolate in their beds of a morning, albeit maybe in the time of a later George.

Chocolate was often mixed with wine or port to make a drink and we were shown a demonstration of how to make that.  However, I explored a bit further and found various recipes made with water and/or milk (rather than alcohol) and spices.  I particularly liked one where the sugar was first soaked in rosewater. There are also examples of spices like cardomon and cayenne being used, and I may try a combination like that another time.

So this is just one I came up with as a result of my reading and using, on a whole, things I had in the house.  I did buy some chocolate! I got a Lindt 90% cocoa which had sugar and vanilla in it, so I didn't add sugar as would normally have been done in the time of George I. And I made it with a combination of water, rosewater and cream as I don't like milk. I used aniseed essence, but you could make it with ouzo though I doubt that it was drunk at the court of George I. I made it in my briki, but you could do it in a saucepan. Enjoy!

Ingredients

30 gr Lindt 90% chocolate (with sugar and vanilla)
2 tbs almond meal
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
1 tsp aniseed essence
2 tbs rosewater
1 cup boiling water
2 tbs thick cream

Mode

Place the almond meal in a small dish
Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg
Add aniseed essence and rosewater
Stir to combine and leave to absorb flavours
Break the chocolote into pieces and set aside
Boil the water in a briki and turn down the heat
Add chocolate and stir until dissolved
Add the almond meal mixture and stir
Add the cream  and combine well
Whisk and pour into a teacup to serve.

"Elizabethan" vegetable tarte

A couple of days ago, I blogged about an Elizabethan pea tarte which I made for my current Futurelearn course. Whilst I liked the outcome, I have since reflected on what worked or didn't work and how it might be improved.  In this case, I chose to use a mixture of vegetables.  I put the vegetables (apart from the peas into the microwave at full pelt for one minute.  If you don't want to use a microwave you could steam them briefly.

I chose not to microwave the peas this time as I felt with the other recipe that modern frozen baby peas simply didn't need the extra cooking. So next time I make the pea tarte I won't do pre-cooking of the peas. I also chose this time to add the verjuice to the vegetables at the beginning and to have a closed pastry top and not to do two stages of cooking.  I found that this worked well and the vegetables probably stayed a bit moister.  But maybe this is my modern taste speaking.

Ingredients

Sweet potato
Cauliflower
Green peas frozen
Unsalted butter
Pepper
Cayenne
Cummin
Puff pastry
Verjuice



Mode

Preheat oven to 180c
If pastry frozen, remove to thaw
Slice sweet potato into fairly thin rounds
Break cauliflower into small flowerlets
Place cauliflower and sweet potato in souffle dishes
Sprinkle with pepper, cayenne and cummin
Place in microwave for one minute
Remove from microwave and add frozen peas
Add about 2 tsp sweet i.e. unsalted butter to each dish
Sprinkle verjuice into each dish
Cut the pastry into size for each dish

Place the pastry on the top of each souffle dish
Cook in the oven for 45 minutes

Elizabethan pea tarte

Week two of my Royal Food and Feasting Futurelearn course focuses on Elizabeth 1. One of the recipes is for a pea tarte.  This is my variant on the tarte. I prefer to minimize the amount of pastry I eat and tend to make my pies (aka Elizabethan tartes) in dishes with pastry covering the top rather than with the contents surrounded top and bottom with pastry. So this is my attempt at an Elizabethan green pea pie in that context.

Essentially the dish requires a hot oven, green peas, sweet butter, pepper, saffron, a bit of salt and pastry on top for the initial cook.  Then slosh a sprinkle of verjuice into the top and cook for a bit longer.  It's very simple but tastes great and you can certainly taste the difference with the verjuice. I was glad to pull out my Maggie Beer verjuice that I don't use often.

Ingredients

Green peas frozen
Unsalted butter
Pepper
Saffron
Salt
Puff pastry
Verjuice 

Mode

Preheat oven to 180c
If pastry frozen, remove to thaw
Place frozen peas in microwave for one minute or steam briefly
Place peas in small souffle dishes
Sprinkle with pepper, saffron and salt
Add about 2 tsp sweet i.e. unsalted butter to each dish
Cut the pastry into size for each dish
Cut a cross in the centre of each piece of pastry
Place the pastry on the top of each souffle dish
Peel back the triangles of the cross
Cook in the oven for 30 minutes
Remove from oven and pour dash of verjuice into each pie through the hole on top
Shake to mix ingredients
Remove to oven another 15 minutes.

"Capon" with orange #blogjune Day 30

Week 2 of my FutureLearn course on Royal Food and Feasting saw me looking at Elizabethan food. This recipe is for "capon" with oranges and herbs and spices. As I had no capons available (castrated roosters), I cooked it with a chook.  The oranges and spices would have been significant additions to the dishes in Elizabethan times as they would have had to be imported and expensive additions to impress. The original recipe called for 6-8 oranges but, as they are not a luxury to me, I thought that four were enough. The oranges in the original were also peeled but I left the peels on as I think they provide a great taste. I also didn't add the sugar as suggested.

So what did I think?  The process of cooking was quite long, but the chicken tender and imbued with the flavours.  I put bread-crumbs in the sauce for the last part of the cooking but didn't find that it thickened the sauce much. That was a slight disappointment but maybe I didn't use enough bread-crumbs or else I was thinking that the sauce would thicken differently? Or I should have added the bread-crumbs earlier? I would have liked to have eaten it with gnocchi again, but as I didn't have any on hand I used organic wholewheat noodles, again rather an anachronistic addition.




Ingredients

1 1.4k free-range chicken
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups red wine
4 Navel oranges
Thyme
Rosemary
Parsley
Mace
Cloves
Cinnamon sticks
Nutmeg
3 heaped tbs white breadcrumbs

Mode

Heat stock in pan
Add chicken and bring to boil
Reduce to simmer and simmer for 45 minutes
Take off two ladles of the stock and mix with wine
Add wine and stock to chicken
Slice oranges into quarters and then half the quarters
Add oranges to pan with chicken
Tie together sprigs of thyme, rosemary and parsley and add to the pan
Add mace, cloves, cinnamon sticks and mace to the pan
Raise the heat and boil to reduce
Just before serving add breadcrumbs, stir to combine and continue boiling until sauce thickens.

Fylettys en galentyne #blogjune Day 27

Like my last recipe, Fylettys en galentyne is one of the historic recipes I have been playing with for my FutureLearn course on Royal Food and Feasting. This is an example of the use of exotic spices cooked to flavour meat, not as I mistakenly thought to cover up bad meat, but to provide evidence of the wealth of the host providing the food. It is interesting to note that at the time of Henry VIII in England if you visited any other European court you could expect the same exotic spices to flavour your food.

This is a pork dish.  The original recipe would have used roast pork from the day before, but I used fresh pork and sealed it with the spices and butter while cooking the onions. The spices are ones which we don't use for meat much today: pepper, cinnamon, cloves and mace, but the mace was the only one I found a bit elusive in terms of purchasing. We were given both the original recipe and a simplified, modern version. I drew what I did and have recorded below from a combination of both recipes and it is neither one nor the other.

The recipe used whole cloves but I used ground cloves for the simple reason that that came to my hand in the pantry before the whole cloves. It also meant that the whole cloves didn't need to be picked out during eating. I accidentally omitted the saffron that the original recipe says to add with salt at the end.  I wasn't going to add the salt as I don't usually cook with it, but I found the saffron on the bench still waiting later.

Apart from adding the bread into the sauce while cooking (I used seeded sourdough but use what you have on hand), this dish would have probably have been eaten with more bread at the table. I ate it with potato gnocchi. definitely not a Tudor dish for a number of reasons.  But I am always keen to try fusion cuisine and this tasted delicious. And the kitchen smelt wonderful for 24 hours!  I'll certainly try this dish again, maybe with the saffron next time.

Ingredients

450 gr pork
1 litre beef stock
2 onions
25 gr butter
Pepper
Cinnamon
Mace
Ground cloves
2 slices bread
1 tsp vinegar

Mode 

Place the stock in a large pan on the stove top
Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer
Meanwhile slice the onion and chop the pork roughly
Melt the butter in a pan
Add the onions and cook until softening
Add the pork and turn until sealed on all sides
Add the pepper, cinnamon, mace and ground cloves in desired amounts
Combine everything and cook for a few minutes further stirring regularly
Transfer the meat, onions and spices to the stock
Bring to the boil again and then reduce to a simmer
Simmer slowly until all the ingredients are tender and the stock has reduced considerably.
Place the slices of bread in a bowl and pour two ladles of the stock over them
Leave to soak for ten minutes
Using a spoon press the bread and stock mixture through a sieve
Add the resulting mixture to the pan, stir to combine
Continue simmering until ready to serve.
A few minutes before serving add the vinegar to the pan and stir.

Tarte owt of Lente #blogjune Day 23

Two of my favourite interests are history and cooking. And at the moment I am enjoying both with my MOOC through FutureLearn.  It's conducted by the University of Reading in conjunction with Historic Royal Palaces and the theme is food cooked in the royal palaces of Britain. It goes for five weeks and covers five monarchs. It's called "A History of Royal Food and Feasting".   Apart from the historical exploration, there is cooking exploration and each week we have recipes to experiment with.

This Tarte owt of Lente is my first recipe, a Tudor cheese pie which includes all the ingredients people would have eaten in Lent: cheese, butter and cream.  I know these are not necessarily what all would think of as fasting, but there you go. Tudor recipes, such as this one, are guides for cooking rather than prescriptive lists of ingredients and procedures. We watched a video cooking demonstration as part of the course. But I didn't want to cook it quite as the demonstrator had done, so I enjoyed myself playing around with possibilities. I used a combination of ricotta and Cheshire cheese, while he used just Cheshire, though we were told that soft cheeses were also used. Yummy!

Ingredients

375 gr ricotta
30 gr Cheshire cheese
2 eggs
100 ml thick cream
2 sheets shortcrust pastry
Freshly ground pepper

 


Mode

Preheat oven to 180c
Remove pastry from freezer (in my lazy case) or make with butter and flour
Crumble the Cheshire into a mortar
Pound with pestle until soft and combined
Scrape the Cheshire into a mixing bowl
Add ricotta and combine cheeses
Add one egg to the cheese mixture and combine until smooth
Add cream and stir to combine
Add generous amounts of freshly ground pepper and stir
Line a pie or tart dish with pastry base
Add cheese mixture
Beat the remaining egg with a fork in a cup
Cut the pastry lid for the pie and cover the pie, using the egg mixture to seal
With a pastry-brush cover the top of the pie with the egg mixture
Bake in 180c oven for 45 minutes

Chicken balls with stirfried vegetables #blogjune Day 17

It's a cold wet night in Melbourne again.  Winter is here. What is more delicious than some chicken balls?  I flavoured them with thyme and dill, but I always like the combination of Mediterranean and Asian flavours, so I added ginger to the chicken mixture and bok choi to the vegetables. Dashes of sweet chilli sauce and Vietnamese fish sauce added to the Asian flavour.  This recipe served three, with nutty wholegrain brown rice.

Ingredients

700 gr minced chicken
1/4 bunch fresh dill
1 tbs dried thyme
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
Olive oil
2 carrots
6-8 green beans
1 stem bok choi
Sweet chilli sauce
Fish sauce

Mode

Crush garlic and ginger
Chop dill roughly
Crumble thyme  discarding stalks
Add chicken, garlic, ginger, thyme and dill to a bowl
Combine ingredients thoroughly with hands
Using a heaped soup spoon of mixture form meatballs 
Heat olive oil in pan on stove top
Add the meatballs and quickly seal on both sides
Cook for a few minutes turning constantly
Meanwhile, chop the beans, bok choi and carrots
Add to the meatballs and stir to combine adding more oil if needed
Sprinkle with chilli sauce and fish sauce
Mix to combine and ensure that all ingredients are covered with the sauces
Stirfry quickly until all ingredients are cooked

Eggplant Parmigiana #blogjune Day 16

On the weekend I went out for a very pleasant lunch with my friend, Letizia, and she ordered eggplant Parmigiana.  When it arrived, we were both quite surprised by its appearance as it had obviously been baked in a tray in layers and served as a slice, like lasagne. Neither of us had seen it cooked like that before.  So, of course, I wanted to experiment and work out how to cook it - especially when I saw some shiny eggplants when I was out shopping.

The end result was absolutely delicious, if I say so myself, but was also the result of what I had in hand in the kitchen (apart from the eggplant).  I am sure it could be equally nice with another herb.  I shall have to try some other variants.

Ingredients

1 eggplant
Salt
1 can diced tomatoes
Dried thyme
2 tbs tomato paste
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp chopped ginger root
Olive oil
Parmesan

Mode

Slice the eggplant lengthwise as shown in photo
Place on a plate, sprinkle with salt and leave for 24 hours.
Preheat the oven to 180c
Rinse the eggplant and put aside
Place the canned tomatoes in a saucepan on a fairly high flame
Add the tomato paste and stir to combine
Crush the garlic and ginger and add
Crumple the thyme and add, discarding stalks
Stir to combine
Bring tomato mixture to the boil and simmer to thicken
Meanwhile heat olive oil in a frying-pan
Fry the eggplant slices turning regularly
Place half the eggplant slices on the bottom of baking dish
Cover with half of the tomato sauce
Sprinkle with grated Parmesan
Place the remaining half of the eggplant on top
Cover with the rest of the tomato sauce
Sprinkle with grated Parmesan
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes.