How to cook eggplant
Eggs Florentine and ratatouille.How to cook eggplant has been streamlined so that you can prepare this marvelous vegetable in just half an hour. The recipe below is especially for those who hate taking statins, but love their eggs, butter and cream. Yes, you can have your cake and eat it, if you regularly consume foods like this.
Wherever the Indian tribes from the subcontinent have made a base, as in South Africa, it is known as a brinjal, and in Europe an aubergine. An eggplant by any other name would taste just as sweet.
Ingredients
- A chunk of butter, or olive oil
- 1 eggplant, thoroughly washed and diced into large chunks
- Half an onion, chopped
- A couple cloves of garlic
- 2 large, very ripe tomatoes, washed and roughly chopped
- 1 cup of chicken bones bouillon, or vegetable broth
- A handful of your favourite herbs
- A tablespoon of capers and a touch of fish paste are optional extras
Go for it
- Sweat the onion in butter on low heat until translucent.
- Turn up the heat and brown the onions, and then add the eggplant, salt and pepper, and saute for five to ten minutes until tender.
- Turn down the heat, add a slosh of olive oil, the garlic and fish paste.
- Stir for a moment, and then add the tomatoes and bouillon, and simmer for another five minutes.
- Stir in the capers and serve with a sprinkling of your parsley or sweet basil.
Chopping the onions might seem obvious but there is an art to doing it quickly and efficiently so the sulphurous acid vapours don't burn your eyes.
Cut the onion in half lengthways through the top to bottom ends. Snip off the tip, peel, but retain the root end. Cut slices longitudinally, almost down to the chopping board.
Now cross-cut and finally remove the root end. Voila, it is so simple.
tomato a day
A tomato a day keeps the urologist at bay. Dinkum, men who eat them every day have half the rate of the most nasty and prevalent tumours of the prostate. It all has to do with a phytochemical called a lycopene; the suggestion is that when cooked it is more readily absorbed in the intestine, especially with a little extra fat.
It belongs to a group of phytochemicals called carotenoids that are antioxidants, protecting us from the dangerous effect of free radicals. It is best enjoyed from pink and red foods like tomatoes, watermelon and papaya, rather than from supplements[1].
There is plenty of research showing that those who do not get adequate lycopene from their food are more prone to a host of serious diseases like macular degeneration and Lou Gehrig's disease but larger studies are needed to prove it conclusively.
In short, eat more tomatoes, the richest source; they partner so well when cooking eggplant.
How to cook eggplant
How to cook eggplant is a simple, basic ratatouille recipe.
How to cook eggs Florentine
Ratatouille is not a complete meal; it is low on protein. In the photo above I have shown it alongside eggs Florentine, another of our favourite dishes with an egg poached on a bed of spinach.
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More conventional ratatouille
The more conventional way to cook ratatouille is to add a zucchini and a green pepper. Obviously that is fine, but you do have to cook it rather longer to drive off the extra moisture.
Personally I love bell peppers, though not cooked for some reason. So I would rather add a peppadew say, or even some chili.
Scientists are still trying to find out what the active ingredient in eggplants is that helps to lower cholesterol. Then it will not be long before you will be inundated with adverts to buy it as an expensive supplement. Myself I will stick with the philosophy of Hippocrates, the father of the healing sciences; let your food be your medicine.
The other important foods that lower cholesterol are by the way, unrefined rolled oats, chickpeas and an apple a day; all salads, vegetables and fruit too.
- Lycopene at Medline Plus.
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