EGGPLANT, HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

 Let me count the ways—fried, grilled, roasted, steamed, stewed. With cheese. With ground meat stuffing. With seafood. With molasses. As a tapa, a side or a main dish. Spanish cooking has dozens of ways for preparing this versatile summer vegetable. 

This recipe for eggplant croquettes is one more reason for love. Crispy on the outside, meltingly creamy on the inside, the croquettes don't require bechamel sauce. They make a great aperitif to pass around with drinks or, served with rice and a sauce, a vegetarian main course.

Serve these croquettes as an aperitif with drinks.

Eggplant croquettes are crispy on the outside, creamy inside.

Serve croquettes with a dipping sauce. We like alioli, garlic mayonnaise.

Serve the croquettes on rice with sauce for a main course.

A delightful vegetarian main dish.

Eggplant Croquettes

Croquetas de Berenjena

The eggplant needs to be cooked until soft enough to mash. You can roast it on a grill or in the oven or, easiest in hot weather, steam it in a microwave. A food processor is helpful for grinding fresh breadcrumbs, chopping parsley and garlic, and mixing the eggplant.

Makes 20 croquettes

2 medium eggplant

2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 cloves garlic

¼ cup parsley

¼ teaspoon cumin

Pinch hot pimentón (paprika) or cayenne

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup grated cheese (3 ounces)

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs, preferably whole wheat

To fry the croquettes.

Flour for dredging

1 egg beaten with 2 teaspoons of water

Fine dry breadcrumbs for dredging

Olive oil for frying

To microwave, wrap in plastic film.

  

 Place the eggplant in a microwave-safe dish. Wrap the dish in a double thickness of plastic film wrap. Microwave the eggplant on High for 5 minutes. Allow to stand 10 minutes before unwrapping. (The eggplant should feel soft to the touch.) 

Split eggplant and scoop out flesh.

When cool enough to handle them, slit the eggplant open and scoop out the pulp with a spoon. There should be approximately 2 cups pulp. Place in a bowl and drizzle with lemon juice.

Mince the garlic and parsley in a food processor. Add the eggplant pulp and pulse to chop the eggplant finely. Don’t puree it. Blend in the cumin, pimentón and salt. Transfer to a bowl and fold in the grated cheese. Add the breadcrumbs and mix thoroughly.

Chill the croquette mixture at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.

Place the flour, beaten egg and fine breadcrumbs in bowls. 

Roll the eggplant mixture into walnut-sized balls and shape them into cylinders. Dredge them first in flour, then coat in beaten egg, then roll them in fine crumbs. Sprinkle a spoonful of the crumbs on a sheet pan and place the croquettes on it as they are shaped.

Dredge in flour.

Dip in egg, then roll in crumbs.

After breading, spread the croquettes on a tray to dry.

Allow the croquettes to dry at room temperature for 1 hour.

Place oil to a depth of 1 inch in a deep pan. Heat the oil until shimmering, but not smoking. Fry the croquettes, a few at a time, turning them as they brown. Remove when golden-brown and drain them on paper towels.

Drain excess oil on paper towels.

Serve the croquettes hot or room temperature. They can be reheated in a hot oven.

More recipes for eggplant love:

Fried Eggplant with Molasses.

Eggplant and Shrimp Rollups.

Moroccan Eggplant Salad (Zeilouk).

Roasted Eggplant with Cheese.

Pickled Eggplant, Almagro Style.

Eggplant Tortilla.

Meat-Stuffed Eggplant.

Eggplant Timbale.

Grilled Eggplant and Peppers (Escalivada).

Microwave Baba Ghanoush.

HOLY MACKEREL!

 They’re cheap, they’re healthful, they’re delicious. Mackerel, a fish in no danger of over-fishing, is a summertime treat. 

If mackerel has any drawback, it’s that the oil-rich flesh deteriorates rapidly. Eat them fresh, fried, baked or grilled. For longer keeping, put them in escabeche, a vinegar marinade. 

Fillets of mackerel in escabeche center a salad platter, a perfect summer lunch.

Escabeche is an ancient way of preserving foods in a marinade. (The word derives, via Arabic, from the Persian sikbâg.) Typically, escabeche is made with vinegar, olive oil and salt, often with aromatics such as garlic and herbs. Vinegar is a potent preservative. Olive oil in the marinade rises to the top as the food cools and creates a protective seal, allowing the escabeche foods to be kept for periods of time without refrigeration.  

Mackerel in escabeche is particularly popular in Cádiz, Málaga and Huelva (Andalusia) where this fish is common. In Galicia, simple escabeche, with vinegar, garlic and pimentón (paprika) is used for sardines, shad and lamprey as well as mussels and oysters. In inland regions such as La Mancha, escabeche is a traditional way of preserving fresh-water fish such as trout, pike and tench. If you haven’t got mackerel, sardines or trout, try this with farmed catfish. 

Traditionally, the fish is gutted, floured and fried until thoroughly cooked. Then boiling hot escabeche marinade is poured over the pieces of fish. Easier, skip the frying and cook the fish right in the marinade.

You can make this dish with whole (gutted) fish or fillets. Even when the spine has been removed, mackerel has fine bones that are much easier to pull out after the fish is cooked. 

For presentation, try to keep the fillets intact—but save any chunks that break up, as they are terrific mashed up with hard-cooked egg and mayonnaise for “tuna” salad sandwich.

How to serve escabeche? As a cold dish garnished with leafy greens and tomatoes, it makes a good starter or luncheon entrée. Those crunchy pickled carrots in the marinade are delicious, by the way.

Serve mackerel in escabeche as a starter, garnished with pickled carrots, potatoes, eggs and greens.

Serve mackerel fillet on toasts and garnish with strips of red pepper from the marinade.

Mash the mackerel up with chopped carrots, red peppers, hard-cooked egg and a little mayo. Use it as a sandwich spread or topping for toasts.

Salad with mackerel and vegetables makes a main course dish.

Mackerel in Escabeche Marinade

Caballa en Escabeche

Serves 6.

Mackerel.

3-4 whole mackerel, 2 ½-3 pounds

Salt

¾ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 onion, julienne sliced

2 carrots, sliced

½ cup julienned red bell pepper

6 cloves garlic, slivered

Red pepper flakes (optional)

2 bay leaves

Sprig of lemon thyme (optional)

Strip of orange or lemon zest

¼ teaspoon black peppercorns

¼ teaspoon coriander seed

Pinch of ground cloves

½ cup white wine

¾ cup white wine vinegar

¼ cup water

Cooked potato, sliced, to serve (optional)

Leafy greens, to serve (optional)

Hard-cooked eggs, to serve (optional)

Flaky salt

Use paper towels to wipe out any remaining blood in the cavity of the fish. Wash the mackerel well and pat them dry. Sprinkle them inside and out with salt.

Heat ½ cup of the oil in a pan large enough to hold the fish. Add the onion, carrots, red pepper and garlic. Poach them in the oil until somewhat softened, 5 minutes. Add the red pepper flakes, if using; the bay leaves; thyme, if using; lemon zest; peppercorns; coriander; cloves; wine; vinegar; water, and 1 teaspoon salt. Cover the pan and cook the vegetables 10 minutes.

Carefully place the fish in the pan. Raise the heat so the liquid bubbles gently. Cover the pan and cook the fish 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the mackerel to finish cooking in the residual heat, 15 minutes. (The fish is cooked if it easily separates from the bone.)

Lift out spines.

  Use a slotted spatula to remove the mackerel to a platter. While     they are still warm, use a table knife to scrape off the skin. Split a fish open along the spine and lay it flat. Lift out and discard the spine. Cut each half into two fillets, carefully removing any bones. (Fingers work best for finding the bones.)

  Place the fillets in a non-reactive container (glass or ceramic). Ladle     escabeche over each layer. If fillets fall apart, layer the pieces along with the whole fillets. Pour all the remaining escabeche liquid over the mackerel. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of remaining olive oil over the top.

Layer mackerel with marinade.

Cover tightly with a lid or a triple layer of plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 8 hours and up to 36 hours. 

To serve, lift fillets of mackerel out of the marinade and place them on plates with leafy greens. Garnish with strips of red pepper and sliced carrots from the escabeche plus sliced potatoes and eggs, if using. Spoon escabeche marinade over the mackerel and potatoes. Sprinkle with flaky salt and drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Escabeche plated.

More escabeche recipes:

Quail Lollipops in Escabeche.

Chicken Wings in Escabeche.

Anchovies in Bitter Orange Escabeche.

Pickled Mushrooms.

Quinoa Salad with Partridge in Escabeche.

Marinated Bonito with Olives.

More recipes with mackerel:

Mackerel with Pisto Vegetables.

Horse Mackerel Biscay Style.

50 WAYS TO USE YOUR TOMATOES

Tomato season is peaking! Big ones or little ones, from the garden or from the farmers’ market, heirloom varieties or not, ripe tomatoes are what you want. Eat one right off the vine or cut it up in a salad. Chop a few and sauté them in olive oil. Roast them on the grill or slice them into a sheet pan. Nothing says summertime quite like tomatoes.

Tomatoes weren’t always big and red and at home on the Mediterranean. The originals, discovered in Peru and Mexico by Spanish explorers and conquistadores early in the 1500s, were yellow and not much bigger than peas. The pre-Columbian Peruvians didn’t cultivate them, but gathered them wild in season. Like many other botanical curiosities from the New World, tomatoes were brought back to Spain and cultivated in monastery gardens.

Perhaps because they were unknown or maybe because they belong to the same family as deadly nightshade, tomatoes were believed to be toxic if eaten. They were grown as a handsome ornamental.

If the Spaniards couldn’t see gazpacho in their future, the Italians must have had an empty place just waiting for tomato sauce to put on their spaghetti. After the kingdom of Naples came under Spanish rule in 1522, tomatoes were introduced there and slowly gained culinary ground. The Italians are credited with breeding red varieties.

To celebrate the tomato in Spanish cooking, here’s a listing of recipes that have appeared on this blog with tomatoes as a star ingredient. Maybe not quite fifty, but close enough. Enjoy!

Salads and Cold Dishes

Pipirrana is a chopped salad with tomatoes and peppers often served as a tapa.

Fresh Tomato-Pepper Salad (Pipirrana).           Tomato-Pepper Relish.

Moroccan Chopped Tomato Salad.                   Tomato-Cucumber Relish (Piriñaca).

Salpicón, seafood cocktail with tomatoes and avocado.

Shellfish Cocktail with Tomatoes.

Tomatoes and Peppers with Tuna (Titaina Valenciana)

Layered Gazpacho Salad.

Cobblestone Salad with Chickpeas.

Tomatoes Stuffed with Rice Salad.

Tomato-Tuna-Olive Dunking Salad.

Sliced tomatoes with anchovy dressing.

               
                  Beefsteak Tomatoes with Anchovy Dressing.

                  Spanish Mixed Salad with Tomatoes.

Bread and Pastries with Tomatoes

Pan con tomate, classic toasts with tomato, olive oil and ham.

A summery quiche with tomatoes.

Catalan Toasts.

Tomato Quiche.

Gazpacho and Soup

Gazpacho and its variations are emblematic of summer in Spain.

Andalusian Gazpacho.                                      Classic Gazpacho.

Country Gazpacho.                                           Gazpacho Cream (Salmorejo).

No-Bread Gazpacho.                                        Mango-Tomato Gazpacho Cream (Porra)

Gazpacho Bloody Mary.                                   Gazpacho Granita.

Gazpacho with Shrimp.                                    Gazpacho with Macaroni.

Hot Gazpacho with Figs.                                  Tomato Soup with Bacon.

Sofrito for Seafood Soup.                                 Monkfish Soup.

How to serve gazpacho? Clockwise from the left, in plastic cups for a picnic, in a tall glass, in mugs, in a fancy coupe, in bowls and, as shooters for passing at a gathering, in shot glasses.  Garnishes are optional; good when served in bowls.

   

Vegetables with Tomatoes

An all-vegetable stew (alboronía)

.

Sauté of Green Beans and Cherry Tomatoes.

Pumpkin Stew with Tomatoes and Peppers.

Vegetable Medley with Tomatoes and Zucchini.

Tomato Sauces

Smooth or chunky, fresh tomato sauce goes with many foods.

Sofrito (Basic Tomato Sauce).

Tomato Sauce with Chorizo and Pasta.

Tomato-Sherry Sauce with Fish.

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Stuffed Peppers.

Chicken, Meat, Fish, Eggs with Tomatoes

A summertime stew with pork and vegetables cooked in tomato sauce (pisto con magro de cerdo) .

Pork and Vegetable Summer Stew.                               Pork with Tomato Sauce.

Chicken with Tomato.                                                   Chicken Braised with Wine and Tomatoes.

Stuffed Peppers with Chunky Tomato Sauce.               Lamb Stew with Roasted Tomatoes.

Paella with Sofrito.                                                        Fish Baked with Potatoes and Tomatoes.

Baked Eggs with Tomato (Flamenco Eggs).                 Eggs Poached in Tomato with Cheese.

Tomato-Vegetable Stew with Chicken.

Paella always begins with sofrito,  crushed tomatoes fried in olive oil.