Tonight, we whipped up this stew with its recommend polenta accompaniment:
Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Stew with Chickpeas
How fun to be cooking in LA! I’m revisiting all the stores where I used to shop when I lived here 15 years ago. I remember cherishing the whole shopping cart experience, filling up the car trunk with groceries from what seemed like endlessly-supplied supermarkets, but today I’m feeling particularly grateful for the quality, selection, and value of the shopping in NYC (esp. Fairway).
I gave Helen a bunch of options and this stew was her pick, I think because she’s had some unfortunate experiences cooking eggplant and was hoping for some new ideas. This recipe is more heavily notated than most in the book, and I think it freaks out Helen a little bit, but it’s written really clearly, and it's ultimately quite effective.
The first thing you do is roast some veggies: eggplant, peppers, and garlic. I&T suggest not only to cover the roasting pans with parchment but also to brush the parchment with oil. I thought that was a little crazy in the overkill dept… I mean, nothing sticks to parchment! Well, as it turns out, eggplant will stick to parchment. Even oiled parchment. So good call, I&T!
The timings for roasting were pretty spot on, although I think the eggplant might have browned a little too much. Not to the point of charcoal, but many pieces were solidly brown.
I’d been wanting to try the whole brown-paper-bag-steaming-pepper-skins-off thing, which we did, and which worked perfectly. As for the garlic, there’s no instruction to slice off the top of the bulb, which you usually see in usages like this and which makes squeezing out the cloves very easy. But no worries, we were able to unpeel the roasted cloves without too much fuss.
The sautéing of the onions, garlic, wine and herbs is particularly gratifying in the smell department. And once all the ingredients get added together, you can see that it’s going to be a really nice dish.
The roasted garlic cloves that get added at the end are the crowning glory on an amazing combination of ingredients. This is a wonderful, straightforward, people-pleasing dish, which was thoroughly enjoyed by Helen, her vegetarian (!) daughter Hannah, and our friend John, who says he usually feels the need to add some protein to a dish like this, but felt completely satisfied without it.
My only complaint was having to pick out all the bell peppers, but that's just me.
SFO: 10
Soft Poppy-Seed Polenta
Easy, delicious, hearty, perfect accompaniment. Eek, I'm starting to sound like a broken record with these adjectives....
I have two things to say about this recipe:
One, it came out quite loose. I could not have stood up a spoon in this polenta. Not that it was a problem - the consistency was quite nice with the stew. Hey, maybe that's what the "Soft" in its name is meant to conjure.
Two, I have nothing against the poppy seeds in this recipe, I'm just not sure if they add anything. I&T say they provide visual interest, but I don't think anything would be lost by leaving them out.
SFO: 10
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