Eggplant Salad Recipe
This has been the summer of easy, delicious eggplant (and zucchini) salad.
If you haven’t heard, Europe just emerged from a stifling heat wave. We were very fortunate, here on the Calabrian coast it was a mere 93°F (34°C) but temperatures inland were hitting 105°F (40.5°C)!!
Exiting the car felt like someone was blowing a hair drier in our faces. The last time I felt intense heat like that was when I lived in Phoenix, Arizona (yes, I went to ASU). Thankfully, the weather has returned to a gorgeous 84°F (29°C).
In addition to daily morning swims in the Ionian Sea, the saving grace was making a huge batch of this eggplant salad just before temperatures really skyrocketed. Yes, it does require the use of an oven (you can get away with using a grill), but it’s worth it and it stores incredibly well in the fridge for up to five days…
Calabria is famous for making food sott’olio, under oil. This includes everything from jarred anchovies to onions to eggplants which can be stored and eaten throughout the year. Our family often makes a delicious sliced eggplant salad which is just a modified version of a recipe used for jarring.
It’s made by thinly slicing eggplant and zucchini, roasting them on a cast iron pan (or the grill), and then topping the entire thing with extra virgin olive oil, vinegar (or lemon), garlic, herbs, and peperoncino. It’s delicious but requires a fair amount of time standing at a stove so we decided to experiment with throwing everything into the oven. Which worked out extremely well.
Baking eggplant, EVOO, garlic, and loads of herbs in the oven creates a huge concentration of flavor and requires 0 minutes standing at the stove. We love making this using the Lina EVOO because it pairs incredibly well with meaty vegetables such as eggplant and stands up incredibly well with spicy peppers. Grab your bottles of the Lina below and sets here!
Ingredients
2 eggplants, chopped into ½ inch pieces
2 zucchini (or 1 eggplant and 4 zucchini), chopped into ½ inch pieces
1 tsp dried mint or a small handful of fresh finely chopped mint
1 small handful of fresh finely chopped parsley or cilantro
1 large pinch of oregano
2 finely sliced cloves of garlic
1 finely chopped spicy pepper
4 tbsp high-quality extra virgin olive oil, plus some
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or the juice of 1/2 freshly squeezed lemon
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400F.
In a large bowl toss the eggplant and zucchini with several pinches of salt, lots of freshly cracked black pepper, and about 2 - 3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. Then pour everything onto a baking sheet (use two if needed) and bake in the oven for about 40 - 45 minutes or until they look nice and brown. Stir a few times to make sure everything browns evenly and rotate the trays about halfway through if you're using two.
Add all of the herbs to a large bowl (except the fresh mint which can get bitter when heated too much).
Add 4 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, garlic, and spicy pepper to a small pan and cook on low heat for about 5 minutes or until the garlic is a very light golden brown. Then pour the oil over the fresh herbs. Add the mint once cool.
Add the vinegar or lemon juice to the oil and herb mixture and stir.
When the vegetables are done add them to the oil and herb mixture and toss well making sure all the pieces are evenly covered. Salt to taste and add any additional herbs or spicy peppers. Toss again and then let cool to room temperature or store in the fridge for up to 3 days (remove from fridge about 60 minutes before serving).
Grab the full recipe/printout here.
Zoe Shapiro is our lovely guest post for this newsletter…
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That’s all for this week. The 7-day countdown for the publish date of our book begins today. Take care!
Xx
-Skyler & Giuseppe