Eggplant can be a mystery. Will it brown
handsomely or stick to the pan? Will its flesh relax, or stay stiff and chewy?
Will it be sweet, or bitter and gripped with seeds? Is it a boy or a girl? (This last one is a red herring. See the Genius Tip below for what you should really be looking for.)
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t cook
eggplant. We should. Once we find a few recipes we trust, we can handle its
ambiguities. But if you haven’t found yours, or you just don’t want to deal with
it all, do as food writer and editor Francis Lam does: Let your eggplant go free. To avoid the texture struggles altogether, Lam
harnesses eggplant’s affinity for oil and its talent for turning to mush and
makes pasta sauce out of it. You get all of the lovely eggplant flavor and
silken texture, with none of the stress.
Best of all, it’s often 90°F (32°C) outside during
peak eggplant season—and unlike recipes that call for roasting, frying, or
singeing over an open flame, this is all done stovetop in a reasonable amount of
time, over moderate heat, so you—like the eggplant—can go free too.
Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as a
starter
Salt
1 pound (450g) eggplant, cut into
½-inch (1.3cm) slices
⅓ cup (80ml) extra-virgin olive
oil, plus more to finish
3 cloves garlic, lightly smashed
(just flatten them, don’t take out your aggression on them)
Leaves from 2 sprigs thyme or
oregano, chopped
1 cup (240ml) liquid (stock;
water; Lam even uses water left over from cooking lentils)
1 pound (450g) long pasta noodles
(spaghetti, linguine, whatever floats your boat)
2 tablespoons minced dried
tomatoes
6 leaves basil, cut into a chiffonade
Freshly ground black
pepper
1 Lightly salt the slices of eggplant, stack them back
together, and let it all hang out for about 20 minutes. This will season it and
water will drip out, allegedly removing the bitterness, if it’s there.
2 Meanwhile, pour the olive oil into a wide, heavy
saucepan, add the garlic cloves, and set over low heat. You’re just trying to
get them friendly with one another, so don’t worry if nothing happens for a
while.
3 Dry off the eggplant and cut it into chunks. When you
start hearing the garlic sizzle a little and can smell it, drop in your eggplant
and stir to coat it all with oil. Turn up the heat a little bit to medium-high,
add the thyme, and stir. When the eggplant starts to turn translucent and
soften, add the liquid and let it come to a boil, then turn it back down to
medium-low. Let it bubble for a bit and cover it, leaving a crack for steam to
escape. Stir once in a while so the bottom doesn’t stick.
4 Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt
it, and cook the pasta to al dente.
5 Meanwhile, check on the eggplant. The
liquid should be mostly absorbed or reduced after about 20 minutes. Once it
looks mashable, mash it up with a spoon, and adjust the seasoning with salt and
pepper to taste. It should be silky smooth and garlicky and eggplanty and
humming with oil.
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