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Eggplant Baked with Tomato and Wild Herbs

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Eggplant with tomato, bergamot and dried ramp leaves

This is great served in a small casserole

Early last fall I was planning a menu to be executed in someones home. It was going to start with a few appetizers, and the client wanted a selection of gluten free, vegetarian, as well as meat centered apps for guests to graze on before I served dinner.

It was the very tail end of summer, and I went to the farmers market, hoping, praying I could score a couple nice eggplants to work into a rich, tomato gratin scented with wild herbs I’d dried from the growing season. When I talk about wild herbs, there are a lot of them, but the two most useful I’ve found are bergamot (Monarda fistulosa leaves) and dried ramp leaves.

Dried bergamot and ramp leaves

Ramps and bergamot pair very well together as far as wild spices go.

Not only do both of the leaves have a nice, savory punch, they compliment each other too. The ramps taste garlicky, and the bergamot of oregano. In the end, combined with any sort of tomato based sauce, it ends up tasting a bit like what you’d expect pizza sauce to taste like, and since herby-garlicky tomato sauce makes eggplant sing, they’re natural together.

Blanching eggplant: a chef secret 

There’s a trick I like to use while cooking with eggplant. Raw, eggplants are full of moisture, and can be bitter with a strange texture. When I cook eggplant, most of the time It undergoes some sort of preliminary cooking to denature it before the final cooking.

The preliminary cooking most people will be familiar with is frying in oil, but I find it soaks up too much and can make a greasy dish. Grilling can work, but the eggplant has to be sliced, and you have to build a mound of coals or monkey with your grill. Baking eggplant can result in an overcooked, mushy mess, which if you’re making spread is great, but not so much for other preparations.

Eggplant with tomato, bergamot and dried ramp leaves

My favorite way to par cook eggplant is to blanch it in salted water, then allow it to cool, without shocking in ice water. Cutting the eggplant into cubes and blanching in boiling water for a few moments changes the structure and the mouthfeel of the eggplant, tenderizing it and making it soft, as well as seasoning it if you added salt to the water, which I always do. From there, the chunks of eggplant can be added to a dish as-is, or be the start of another recipe like my favorite marinated eggplant, where blanched cubes are tossed with hot chilis, oil, salt, vinegar and herbs and allowed to mature for a while.

Puffed wild rice as a good gluten free breadcrumb alternative 

You might be wondering what the crispy looking things on top of the eggplant are. The meal I was planning had to be gluten free, so I needed a topping for the eggplant that would be crispy, delicious, local, and, not breadcrumbs. Puffed wild rice is a great thing for stuff like that, although it takes some time to make, a description of the process is in the recipe notes here. Eggplant with tomato, bergamot and dried ramp leaves

Great served at room temp as part of an appetizer platter. I have a fond memory of eating similarly in Provence.This was hands down the favorite appetizer at the event. It may have been their favorite, but I was a little frustrated since I spent 3 days also making a pate en croute, cold smoking gravlax and stuffing a wheel of brie with truffles to go alongside. In my head I said to myself:

“I made all of that, and what do they rave about? The damn eggplant that was cannon fodder compared to the pate en croute!”

Anyway, it’s good and a fun way to use the bergamot and ramp leaves.

Eggplant with tomato, bergamot and dried ramp leaves

Eggplant with tomato, bergamot and dried ramp leaves
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Eggplant Gratin with Bergamot, Dried Ramps, Tomato and Parmesan

Eggplant baked with tomato, dried bergamot and ramp leaves. Serve warm, hot, or at room temperature. This is a great addition to an appetizer spread
Prep Time30 mins
Cook Time30 mins
Course: Appetizer, Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Bergamot, Ramp Leaves
Servings: 6

Ingredients

  • 1 medium sized eggplant skin on, washed
  • 1 14 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
  • Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
  • Pinch of chili flakes
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 large clove of garlic about a tablespoon roughly chopped
  • ½ cup carrot onion and celery roughly chopped
  • 1 tablespoon crushed dried bergamot, stems removed
  • Toasted panko breadcrumbs as needed, about ¼ cup (or puffed wild rice, pictured)
  • ¼ cup dry white wine
  • ½ cup grated parmesan cheese preferably an Italian reggiano or grana

Instructions

  • Dice the eggplant into ½ inch cubes.
  • Bring a 2 qts of lightly salted water to a boil, then add the eggplant, return the mixture to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, until the eggplant turns translucent.
  • Remove the eggplant, cool, and gently squeeze out the water in a towel.
  • Reserve the eggplant. Sweat the carrot, onion, celery and garlic in 1 tablespoon of the butter for a few minutes until the onion is translucent.
  • Deglaze the pan with the wine then add the tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes on medium heat, until the vegetables are tender.
  • Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a highspeed blender and puree until very fine, then combine with the eggplant, season the mixture to taste with salt, pepper, parmesan, herbs and the chili flakes, then pack the mixture into a casserole dish, top with the breadcrumbs, dot with the remaining tablespoon of butter, then bake at 375 until hot throughout, browned and bubbly, about 30 minutes.
  • Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then serve immediately, warm, or at room temperature.

Notes

*The meal I was making here had to be gluten free, so, instead of baking the dish with breadcrumbs on top like I would normally do, I used puffed wild rice. To make puffed wild rice, cook wild rice per usual, then dehydrate it. After the rice is dried, fry it in a thin layer of oil as you would popcorn. The puffed rice will keep and stay crisp for 24 hours.

 

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Got treated to a home cooked meal of big lamb meat Got treated to a home cooked meal of big lamb meatballs from the Icelandic lambs @shepherdsongfarm gave us. 

It’s been a while since I had fist-size meatballs. They reminded me of dinners I had with Grandpa at Yarussos in St. Paul, where you got one meatball to rule them all on top of your spaghetti and red gravy. 

Obv I had to make some with venison, wild rice, ramps, and bergamot. The wild rice is fun. Hefty. 

Also forgot to oil my hands, like a chump. 🙄

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Tres Leches soaked in candy cap milk was a fun var Tres Leches soaked in candy cap milk was a fun variation I did on the house dessert of a little restaurant I was at for a time. 

Don’t be surprised if you smell like maple syrup a few hours after eating it. Using ground dried golden chanterelles is another variation that’s on my list to try. 

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However you feel about the topic, grab some popcorn and head over to the comment section on my blog (link in bio) for the 🔥personal stories from readers have shared from around the world. 

There’s the kid who brought home a nutria after school, a wife getting 4 deer with the same car, a train hitting a herd of elk, a bear named squish, living in a house with weasels, and more. 

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Sam Thayer dropped 25 lbs of his highbush cranberr Sam Thayer dropped 25 lbs of his highbush cranberry cultivars (3 types!) on me before the last snowfall and I honestly don’t even know where to start after processing them. I’d already made jams and hot sauce already and I have enough for a year. 😅

Great time to practice the cold-juice which ensures the juice isn’t bitter. 

Anyone else have any ideas? 

You can still find some on the shrubs if the birds didn’t get them up by the north shore. 

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