When you eat it, eggplant can really make you wonder what they heck you were thinking when you bought it. I’ll tell what you what I was thinking: it was cute and purple and in season. If you don’t do it right though, you get (like I got) big, bitter, spongy squares of no good, over priced organic eggplant and you start thinking maybe Stouffer’s is not so bad after all. Whoa mama.
How you cut it, counts. For a ratatuoille, cut the eggplant into small cubes no larger than 1/2 inch. Be sure the frying pan is heavy and hot and that the olive oil you use is your best, before the eggplant goes in–eggplant absorbs soaks up oil like a sponge, even with the hot pan. For a sandwich, try cutting it into rounds that are paper thin. Same deal with the pan–hot and heavy–season lightly with salt and tiny grind of pepper. It will only take a minute to fry on both sides. Be sure there is no more tinge of white to the flesh, and it’s done. Try covering a baguette with the slices of egpplant overlapping each other, and then shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano, topped with baby spinach leaves that have been dressed with a little olive oil, lemon and salt, and finally the other half of the baguette. Oui, Oui!!