Eggplant Relish

You've probably had bad eggplant before. I know I have. Either it's chewy and bitter or tasteless and mush. Or maybe a fun combination of the two? Lucky you.

The thing is, eggplant doesn't have to be bitter, and it doesn't have to be complicated. This is a good side-dish recipe, but you can take this and do many other things with it.

You will need:

• Eggplant
• Tomatoes
• Onion
• Garlic
• Spices
• Salt, Sugar, and Vinegar
  

Eggplant

You'll want the big ones for this recipe. I love the long Chinese ones, but for this, you need a higher flesh-to-skin ratio. If you make this as a side dish, figure 1 large eggplant for two people, but you're the best judge of what kind of eaters you're preparing this for. 1 eggplant will make four or five cups of relish, if you're serving it as an appetizer. But this is good enough to make more than you need.

You should also use ugly eggplant if you have them. Bruises are fine. You're not even going to cut them open. Be frugal and environmentally conscious and use the slightly limp ones. It won't matter.

Tomatoes

Nicely ripened plum tomatoes are best, which is why they're impossible to find. Honestly, as long as they're red, they'll be okay. You could even use canned diced tomatoes, but drain them first. They'll be a little different, but they might be your best option if tomatoes are out of season. One can of tomatoes, or a medium tomato, per eggplant you use.

Onion

This is one time when I don't recommend frozen diced onion. In a pinch, you could use it, but you'll want to sauté them to drive off the sulfurous taste you'll get if you thaw an onion and eat it raw. If you've ever been to a restaurant and had something with diced onions on top that were a little too cold and tasted a little too strong, that's what you're looking to avoid. They'll taste a little different if you sauté them but it's for the best.

Other than that, you can use any onion. I like red, but white or yellow will work just fine. If you use something sweet like a Vidalia, you can probably skip the pickling step below. I'll let you know when we get there. You could even use spring onion, though again the taste will be somewhat different. Good, just different. No matter what onion you use, you'll want the equivalent of one small onion per eggplant.

Garlic

If you use fresh, don't use much and mince it fine. If you use canned, ditto. If you use powder, you're my kind of lazy and I salute you.

Spices

Cinnamon, coriander, and cumin are my go-to for this dish, but it's also delicious with lemon and dill. If you happen to have some ras al hanout (which is a Moroccan spice blend that varies based on who makes it but is always delicious) feel free to use some of that. If you like it spicy, add some black and/or red pepper.

Salt, Sugar, and Vinegar

You'll want these for the pickle if you do that part, but also to brighten up the relish. But you'll nearly always want to have salt, sugar, and vinegar in your life, so pick up some of each and keep them close.

You will also need:

An oven, to roast the eggplant

Sorry, I know some people don't have them. In a pinch, if you have access to a grill, you could do it on a grill, but this isn't a stove-top recipe.

A baking sheet/pan

This is for the eggplant. If you don't have one, in a pinch you can just put the eggplant on a piece of foil, but I'm pretty sure you've got something. The eggplant may release some juice, so unless you feel like scrubbing caramelized eggplant juice off a pan for an hour, use some foil or something.

A bowl

This should be bigger than you think you need. If you're going to be tossing/mixing things, always use a big bowl. You can always be fancy and transfer it to a serving bowl later, but this is a peasant dish so take that however you'd like it.

A strainer

A colander with small holes will work, but a wire mesh strainer would be better. In a pinch though, you can use your hands. This is only necessary if you pickle your onions, but you should pickle your onions.

Let's Go Already!

First thing's first. Preheat your oven to 350. While that's happening, wash your eggplant, then put it on the pan. Pop that sucker in the oven, whole. Check after 30 minutes, but it may take as much as an hour. While it's cooking, you can be doing other things, making your main course, whatever. You're looking for it to stop being firm at all. It'll still look firm, but when you press on it (with something other than your hands please, it's not defying the laws of physics and will be very hot) it should collapse. The fat part may cook faster than the skinnier part near the stem, so make sure you check there too.

You're going to worry that you'll burn it. Don't. You may also worry that it will explode. It won't. If it does rupture, that's usually a good sign that it's done, but it won't splatter your oven with eggplant guts.

While the eggplant is cooking, address your onions. "Onions," say to them, "How aggressive are you, and how much do I want all my guests to have to rush to the bathroom to brush their teeth five times so they don't kill people when they talk to them?" You know, normal, standard stuff you say to onions. They won't answer you. They never do. But if they're not Vidalia onions (and even if they are; taste to make sure) you'll probably want to do this next step.

Dice the onions. You may have seen fancy ways to dice onions in the past, but unless you're confident in your knife skills, don't get fancy. This is, as I said, a peasant dish, which is code for "rustic," which is further code for, "You're allowed to have different sized chunks of things in here." Your dice should be fairly small though. Just run your knife through it a few times, make sure there aren't any giant pieces.

Now, we're going to make a quick pickle of the onions because that will kill off some of the intense compounds in their little onion cells that cause crying, bad breath, and socks with sandals. No, wait, not that last one.

Put your onions in your bowl. Add a generous helping of salt, probably 2 tablespoons per small onion or equivalent. Add a similar amount of white sugar. Don't worry, most of this will be rinsed off once it's done its work.

I use distilled white vinegar for the pickle because you're not going to eat it in the final dish and it's cheap, but if you're made of money feel free to use white or red wine vinegar, or cider would work here too. Add enough vinegar to cover your onions. If you only have expensive vinegar, you can cut it a bit with water. You want your brine (yes, you're making a brine, you cook you) to be salty, sweet, and acidic. That's what counts.

Stir up those onions, make sure the salt and sugar are well-dissolved and all the onion pieces are separated and covered in brine, and set them aside while the eggplant finishes cooking. This dish may take an hour or so to make but most of that is very hands-off.

Once your eggplant is good and soft, take it out of the oven and let it cool down. After about ten minutes, you can carefully cut it open and vent some of the steam. Carefully. Steam will come out. If it doesn't, you haven't cooked it long enough. You did turn the oven on, right? Venting will help it cool down, but don't worry, there should be plenty of juice left in there so you won't dry anything out.

Now, while your eggplant are cooling down enough so you can handle them, drain and rinse your onions. They should have been in the brine for at least half an hour. If not (no shame, maybe it took you a little longer to dice the onions or make the brine) leave them and let your eggplant cool some more until the onions have pickled for half an hour. The cooler the eggplant is, the easier this next step will be.

Once your eggplant are cool enough to handle, pull them apart and scrape the roasted flesh out of the skin. Use a spoon or your fingers or both. A little skin is okay, but get most of it off. If it doesn't come off easily, you didn't cook it long enough. In that case, you can chuck the whole thing back in the oven if it's still mostly in one piece, or you can just use a peeler to take the skin that won't come off if it's mostly cooked. Like I said, a little skin is okay, but the more of it you have, the more it messes up the final texture. Plus undercooked eggplant using this method is likely to be a little bitter. You can adjust the final seasoning with some sugar accordingly.

You're reading this and thinking, "Oh no, this sounds way too complicated." It really isn't. It's very hard to overcook eggplant cooked whole this way. The moisture is trapped in the skin and you get a wonderful combination of steaming and roasting. Leave the eggplant in a 350 oven for an hour and it really should be done. And if you slightly undercook it, I've done that and it's fine. It just makes the skin a little harder to get off, but with a spoon or butter knife you can scrape the flesh off. This really is easy. You can do it.

Run your knife through the eggplant flesh. It should be pretty soft but there may be some larger chunks. Just chop those up. Add all that to the bowl with your rinsed onions.

At this point it's all downhill. Dice your tomato, or drain your can of tomatoes (you can save the juice if you want to be frugal, but we're not using it here) and add them to the bowl. Now, season to taste. I recommend one of two options:

A splash of vinegar (here's where to use the wine vinegar) a teaspoon of cinnamon, two teaspoons each of ground coriander seed and ground cumin

or:

The juice of one lemon, a heaping tablespoon of dill (or a bunch of fresh dill if you've got it), a pinch of cinnamon, oregano, and coriander.

But you can do what you'd like, spice-wise. This could very easily be a salsa, with Mexican-inflected seasoning, or you can add a little curry powder or garam masala, or something even wilder. Spice it up. Please, for the love of your taste buds, season to taste with salt, and maybe a pinch or two of sugar if you find it needs a bit of sweetness (this may be because your eggplant is still a little bitter, or because your tomatoes weren't sweet enough).

You can add a splash of some good olive oil here too. The world is your oyster. Then stir everything together, and you're done!

This works well with pita chips as a dip, or with chicken, pork, or fish as a relish. Easier still, put a few cans of drained chickpeas in and serve over rice, or with greens. Use it as a condiment on flatbread. Use it as a pizza sauce on flatbread and melt some cheese over it (go sparingly in this application).

It'll improve if you let it sit and marry for an hour or so before you serve, but it's good right away too.

Variations as Promised

Now, I promised variations (see, I read my own headings). You can use eggplant cooked like this plus hummus (plain or garlic work best) mixed together to make baba ganoush. Or you can make it with just tahini (the eggplant flavor will come through better this way). You can make eggplant curry with eggplant pulp roasted this way. You can use it to make ratatouille, no giant lumps of bitter, undercooked eggplant. Make ratatoille pizza with pizza sauce mixed with eggplant and onions and peppers on top. This really is one of the easiest and most versatile ways of cooking eggplant I've ever found.

Go out and cook. This is cookable.