Even though eggplants can be found all year long, they’re actually a summer vegetable and August is when they’re the most abundant. I remember when the only eggplant you could find was dark purple, oblong and pear-shaped. Then suddenly a wide variety of eggplants started appearing in the stores and range from small, white eggs, to mottled green and white balls, to long, thin fingers. Whether pale or dark purple, round and fat or long and skinny, the diversity of shape, size and color is truly astounding.

Originally from India, eggplant is a member of the nightshade family, along with tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and tobacco. The raw seeds are bitter and contain a form of nicotine.

Make sure you pick eggplants that are firm to the touch; the long,thin ones tend to have less seeds. Eggplant is like a sponge, made of cells filled with water and air. Salting eggplant causes the cells to release the water which collapses them, making the eggplant less of a sponge to absorb oil.

Eggplant is more commonly used in southern Italy where it seems almost to be used as a meat replacement. They have a myriad of ways to incorporate eggplant into a dish and they all seem to begin with frying it.

One of my favorite antipasti in the dog days of summer is fried eggplant and sweet Italian peppers, served with fresh mozzarella. If you have some nice cherry tomatoes, you can toss those in the hot oil as well. Then serve the whole thing with some fresh mozzarella, a good loaf of bread and a bottle of Primitivo or Negroamaro from Southern Italy. Buon Appetito!

 

 

Fried Summer Peppers, Eggplant & Tomatoes

2 lbs sweet Italian peppers, tops broken off & seeded

2 small eggplants, rectangular cut w/ skin on

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

Extra virgin olive oil

2 cups peanut oil

1/4 cup olive oil

Salt

Mozzarella

Heat the oils in a large sauté pan, about 1 inch deep and fry the peppers in batches until they are cooked and their skins are lightly browned, tossing and stirring every so often to cook evenly. If you can’t find the long sweet Italian peppers, you can use red bell peppers cut into thick slices. After you’ve fried all the peppers and placed them to drain on paper towels, add the eggplant in batches and cook until nicely browned, removing them to paper towel. Make sure the oil is very hot before adding the eggplant, you want them to seal and fry, not absorb oil. Be careful to drain the vegetables over paper, not on top of other pieces of eggplant or pepper. Add the tomatoes to the oil and fry for a few minutes, until their skin starts to crinkle, then drain on paper. Toss all the vegetables together, sprinkle with sea salt. A flaky salt like Maldon or Cyprus is really good and gives a nice salty crunch that pair well with the oily vegetables. Serve as an antipasto with the freshest, best mozzarella you can find.

A note on frying: it’s important for this recipe that the oil is very hot when you put the vegetables in, but not to the smoking point. Adding the vegetables lowers the temperature so you may need to allow the temperature to come back up before continuing with other batches.