Provence & the Midi · Side
Bohémienne d'Aubergines
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with fresh herbs arguing happily on top, aromatics blooming from the first bite, ending saline and clean.
Ingredients
- 1 kg aubergines, in 3 cm cubes
- 1 kg very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and roughly chopped
- 180 ml olive oil
- 2 onions, finely sliced
- 6 garlic cloves, sliced
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- Coarse salt and black pepper
- 1 tbsp chopped flat parsley
The skills inside
Reducing a sauceSautéing & the shallow frySalting to draw the water out
Allergen screen
None found among the 14 screened.
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Salt the aubergine cubes, leave them 30 minutes and press them dry in a towel; once their cells have collapsed they drink far less oil. 30 min
- Reduce the tomatoes in a wide pan with the thyme, bay and a spoonful of oil until they hold their shape on a spoon and no water weeps out around them.
- In a second pan, very hot, fry the aubergine in batches in the rest of the oil until the cubes are bronzed and floppy, adding onion and garlic to the last batch.
- Fold the aubergine into the tomato, cook five minutes more so they trade flavour, then take it off the heat and let it fall to warm before adding the parsley.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Salting to draw the water out 41 recipes
- Salted evenly over every surface rather than tipped on in one place and tossed once.
- Laid out so the water has somewhere to go: a colander, a rack, or a sieve over a bowl, never a flat dish where it sits back in what it gave up.
- Given real time, and there is visible liquid to show for it: a pool underneath, a drip, or a wrung handful.
- That liquid is removed. It is squeezed, blotted or poured away, and the food is dry to the touch before it goes anywhere near heat.
- The dish is seasoned knowing salt has already gone on, tasted before any more is added.
Where it goes wrong It went into the dish still wet, and was salted again out of habit. The water it was carrying dilutes and steams whatever it meets, so the result is watery and over-seasoned at once, and those are two faults that cannot be corrected in the same direction.
Sautéing & the shallow fry 80 recipes
- Everything sits in a single layer with visible space between the pieces: nothing stacked, nothing touching, or the pan is too small for the quantity.
- The pieces move freely and keep moving, sliding across the pan rather than sticking and tearing when the pan is worked.
- Light even browning arrived at quickly: colour on most faces, not the deep crust of a sear and not grey.
- A thin film of fat with the food glossed by it: no pool left in the pan at the end, and nothing greasy on the fingers or the plate.
- Cooked through but still firm, having spent only a few minutes in the pan: anything that has gone soft has been in there too long.
Where it goes wrong Too much went in at once, the pan cooled, and the food released its water: what was meant to brown in three minutes stews for ten and comes out grey, slack and wet.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Chianti Classico or Barbera d’Alba
- Also Right
- Vermentino for the lighter plates
- From the Taps
- Italian pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- San Pellegrino Sanbittèr
Tomato’s acid demands equal acid: Italian reds evolved beside the sauce, and the regional pairing is the safest law in wine.
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