Eggplant is a uniquely beautiful thing. Shiny and so deeply dark purple that it almost appears black, this member of the nightshade family (along with tomatoes, potatoes and peppers) seems mysterious and full of secrets.
One of its secrets is that it's not a vegetable. It's actually a fruit, and not just any fruit. Eggplants are technically considered berries, because they contain small edible seeds.
For years the only eggplant you could find at your local grocery store was of the large, roundish globe variety. Today you can often find a variety of choices. The long, thin Japanese types are commonly found in the produce section. Fairy Tale eggplants are small, with light purple and creamy white stripes and can be easy to find this time of year, which is peak eggplant season.
When I'm shopping for eggplants, I always look for the Japanese or Fairy Tale varieties. They have fewer seeds, a firmer flesh and a thinner skin, and they typically don't need to be salted, which is often necessary with the big globe variety. Salting a sliced globe eggplant ahead of time draws out the water and helps prevent the eggplant from soaking up too much oil.
Another important feature of eggplants is their ability to soak up flavor, and lots of it. Its own flavor is mild, which makes them perfect to pair with other bold ingredients, as I've done in this week's recipe, Spicy Eggplant Pasta.
The recipe is a bit of an international mashup, combining the flavor profiles of two iconic dishes — one from Italy and one from Greece.
Pasta alla Norma, one of Italy's late-summer favorites, starts with eggplant, which is sautéed in copious amounts of olive oil and combined with tomatoes, garlic, oregano, red chiles and basil before being tossed with pasta. It's an unctuous, almost decadent dish that makes the most of its star ingredient, eggplant.
Moussaka is a well-known Greek dish that looks a little like lasagna, with slices of eggplant, again sautéed in olive oil, in place of lasagna noodles. The eggplant is layered with ground lamb or beef mixed with a tomato sauce that's seasoned, much like Pasta alla Norma, with oregano, garlic and red chiles. But in this case it's also kissed with just a touch of cinnamon.
