Wellness Wednesday: Eat like an Egghead

Eggplant is a berry.  Sorry to rain on your parade if you’ve been thinking it was in the vegetable checkbox all these years but it’s a fruit.  The most traditional varieties are purple but the name was inspired actually by the less common white species which resemble large goose eggs.  It’s also known as an aubergine—a French name that was derived from a series of name changes throughout the Mediterranean stemming back to the greek word for black.  Kind of fitting then that the two alternate names relate to the two extremes of color!  I know me and five other people in the whole world find that fascinating.  There’s also Baingan in South Asia but I’ll move on from the name thing and onto the health thing!

The fruit itself is somewhat bitter which is probably why a lot of people don’t think of it as a fruit.  It’s also often marginalized to a few dishes: bhaba ghanoush, ratatouille and eggplant parmesan.  The latter dish often a neglected vegetarian option at Italian restaurants—and very rarely cooked well at the chain restaurants most people go to.  That’s a shame.   Western food hasn’t seemed to embrace the potential in this antioxidant powerhouse though Indian and Thai cuisine seem to use it quite more frequently.

Eggplant is especially high in a rare antioxidant: nasunin.  Why is this one so rare?  It’s an anthocyanin—a pigment specific to fruits and veggies that are blue/purple and there aren’t too many.  Blueberries, blackberries, grapes…purple cauliflower.  There aren’t a lot.  Nasunin has been shown in research to be an especially effective scavenger of free radicals that would damage the lipid lining of brain cells.  Eggplant is food for an Egghead!  It’s also been shown to reduce cholesterol—perhaps largely because of the fact that eggplant is high in fiber and relatively low in calories and fat.   The bulk of the phytonutrients and vitamins are in the skin so don’t peel those suckers unless you have to!

When shopping for eggplants you want to seek out a smooth and shiny berry.  They go bad very quickly and so any discoloring or bruising is a sign that it’s already started to turn and will be soft and mushy.  Eggplants are also very porous and have a fair amount of water.  If handled incorrectly you end up with an oil soaked mess.  One way to cut back on how much the eggplant absorbs is to cut it and sprinkle with salt, place in a colander and let it sit for about 30 minutes to an hour.  The salt will cause some water to pull out and also tenderize the flesh.  Don’t worry, you can wipe all that salt away and won’t have to worry about sodium.

Unfortunately for me Eggplant has one nasty drawback.  It’s very closely related to tobacco—and boy am I allergic to tobacco.  Cooking the plant denatures most of the allergen inducing proteins but I still try not to eat too much just to be safe.  It sucks because eggplant has SO many amazing applications and when spring hits I can’t contain my glee at the sheer number of interesting shades and shapes made up by all the different cultivars.  I mean they are just so beautiful and deeply, hypnotically…purple.

That’s why, when I saw Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook Plenty and saw the front cover featured a beautiful eggplant, I knew I not only had to have it but had to make it.  Now I don’t know what the growing season in Israel is like, but I find that pomegranates and eggplants doing coincide here in California and I had to tweak the recipe slightly to exclude those beautiful gems of the original forbidden fruit.  Instead I substituted with some chopped craisins—they were tarter and definitely a different texture but still good but I think the pomegranate would have been better.  Oh well.

Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce

Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe from Plenty

• 2 large and long eggplants
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon thyme leaves (regular thyme will do), plus a few whole sprigs to garnish
• Maldon sea salt and black pepper
• 1 pomegranate
• 1 teaspoon za’atar (in the spice aisle)

• 9 tablespoons buttermilk
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a drizzle to finish
• 1 small garlic clove, crushed
• 1 pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cut the eggplants in half lengthways, cutting straight through the green stalk (the stalk is for the look; don’t eat it). Use a small sharp knife to make three or four parallel incisions in the cut side of each eggplant half, without cutting through to the skin. Repeat at a 45-degree angle to get a diamond-shaped pattern.

Place the eggplant halves, cut-side up, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush them with olive oil—keep on brushing until all of the oil has been absorbed by the flesh. Sprinkle with the lemon thyme leaves and some salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, at which point the flesh should be soft, flavorful, and nicely browned. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

To make the sauce, whisk together all of the ingredients. Taste for seasoning, then keep cold until needed.

To serve, spoon plenty of buttermilk sauce over the eggplant halves without covering the stalks. Sprinkle za’atar and plenty of pomegranate seeds on top and garnish with lemon thyme. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.