Eggplant! Fresh from the farmer's market (on this occasion)! We now have our own from our little garden. But I digress. This recipe is for eggplant pizza. Really. The recipe is from Joanne Weir's cookbook, From Tapas to Meze, which, as you might expect, is about Mediterranean small plates. Fresh-from-the-market eggplant is not bitter so it takes less prepping than it does when it comes from the grocery store, which is to say, on a truck from who knows where. I would not have thought of this treatment of eggplant, but it was good. And if you have access to a pre-made pizza crust or use my pizza crust recipe, pretty fast.
The ingredients:
1 pizza crust (see below);
1 long skinny (Japanese) eggplant;
6-7 tablespoons olive oil;
1 tablespoon smushed garlic;
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes (in oil);
1/2 cup water;
1/2 cup red onion;
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar;
3/4 cup grated fontina cheese;
3/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese;
some fresh basil leaves;
salt and pepper.
There is a recipe for pizza dough on the blog somewhere. I got the recipe from Robert the wine guy at the Co-op many years ago. I am not sure what a purist would think, but I am not a purist in matters of pizza so I like the pzza crust recipe. If you have a stand mixer and use my recipe, you can make pizza, including the pizza dough, in about one hour. If you prefer, buy a premade crust or a blob of pizza dough, which I understand is available in commerce these days.
Use a skinny eggplant, as they are not seedy. A seedy eggplant (like globe-shaped) would not be so good.
I turned the oven on to 500 degrees and prepped the eggplant by washing it and cutting the ends off and then slicing it into thin (less than 1/4", more than 1/8") slices, slightly on the bias.
I put the slices on a rimmed baking sheet with a silpat and then brushed the slices in olive oil. I used about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
I put the baking sheet in the oven while the oven was heating up. I baked the eggplant slices for a total of maybe 12-15 minutes, turning them over after about 7 minutes and brushing them with some more oil after flipping, not quite 2 tablespoons.
While the eggplant was baking, I poured another 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a little bowl and added one half of the smushed garlic (that is, about 1/2 tablespoon) and set that aside. I chopped the red onion, measured 1/2 cup of the sun-dried tomatoes into a cup and poured about 1 tablespoon of the sun-dried tomato oil into a little skillet.
I added the onions to the skillet, along with the rest of the garlic and cooked that mixture until the onions softened.
Note the eggplant slices out of the oven and in varying degrees of brown. All good.
When the onion was soft, I added the tomatoes and the water. I cooked that mixture for a few minutes, then I put the mixture into the food processor and zizzed it until it was smooth. I poured that mixture into another little bowl and stirred in the balsamic vinegar and a little salt and pepper.
Assembly time.
I put my pizza dough on a big pizza pan and stretched it out. I have learned that having wet hands makes it easier to stretch out pizza dough. Next I brushed the crust with the garlic oil (remember that 2 tablespoons of olive oil and garlic?).
Next the tomato sauce and then eggplant slices.
I had grated the cheese while Philip wasn't looking. I spread the cheese over all and put the pizza pan in the oven. It baked for about 10 minutes.
While the pizza was baking, I shredded the basil leaves, ending up with about 1/2 cup of slices.
I sprinkled the sliced basil over the pizza when it came out of the oven. The heat of the cheese wilted the basil.
As I said above, I would not have thought of making pizza with eggplant. Turns out it was great.
In large part, I followed the recipe. Next time I will simplify. Sun-dried tomatoes are nice, but I think an equal amount of tomato sauce would be fine and would eliminate the need to use the food processor.
Cold pizza is always good.
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