I have an on again off again relationship with nightshades. Excepting the humble potato, eating too much nightshade gives me ulcers on the inside of mouth. Yes, it is sickening. And painful. I can definitely eat nightshades, but not too much.
The Simple Man, though, loves eggplant. I think this is in large part due to it's meaty nature. One year he grew those delicately green, long and slender Thai eggplants and we were overrun with them. I happen to like those better than the purple, common Italian eggplant, but all I had was the purple, which is fine.
This dish is a simple and excellent way to use up that extra eggplant. Why do most recipes with eggplant seem complicated? Eggplant parmesan, stuffed eggplant, eggplant curry...there are always many steps to be taken. This recipe is the opposite. No soaking, no baking, then frying, then chopping, then hunting for special Hungarian spices etc. You slice the eggplant into long fingers and chuck it in the dish. Perfect.
1 large eggplant or 3 small ones
A good handful (or more!) of cherry tomatoes
Olive or grapeseed oil - enough to coat vegetables when mixed
Cayenne
Garlic powder
Salt
Pepper
Cheese
I slice the eggplant into long pieces because this works best for sandwiches, but chunks would be fine too. I prefer to use cherry tomatoes because you can use them whole and that cuts down on prep time, but they also have less juice and seeds to leak out. If you don't have cherry tomatoes you can cut up a regular tomato, just be aware that at one point you'll check on the dish and it will be swimming in tomato juice.This generally cooks down, but you can spoon some of it out. I use a 13 by 9 glass baking dish. Once the eggplant and tomatoes are ready in the dish, I douse in oil, salt, garlic powder and cayenne. I really just eyeball it and toss to make sure everything is well coated. Then I put it in the oven at anywhere from 350 to 400, and check every ten to fifteen minutes until everything is very soft, this take about half an hour. If I'm going to use this in sandwiches I grate a small amount of cheese over the top after it's finished and let the heat melt it before I mix it altogether.
I never seem to have any pictures of food after it has finished cooking and I think that is because my family falls upon every dish as if they have been sucking the bark off twigs in the wilderness for months on end.
Simple, few ingredients, and really, really good. If you like eggplant. And tomatoes!
