Of all the recipes for eggplant caviar, known to me, this one is the most delicious. Only three vegetable ingredients plus spices - and on your table is a chic summer snack. Where there black caviar - that's where a truly delicious dish, this “overseas” caviar - eggplant!
Every summer, in August, with impatience waiting for the eggplants to ripen, I will certainly cook such eggplant caviar. Although the blue ones can now be bought in supermarkets all year round, however, the prices for them in winter are as if they were truly overseas fruits. Moreover, the “winter” vegetables look and feel like plastic. After all, it is in your season that any vegetables are most tasty and healthy.
This recipe for eggplant caviar is not suitable for rolling for the winter, so you need to enjoy the dish in the eggplant season. And, having tasted tasty caviar once, you will cook it more than once!
Ingredients for Eggplant Caviar:
- 3 large or 5 small blue ones;
- 1 medium bulb;
- 2 large, ripe tomatoes;
- Salt - 0, 5 tsp. or to taste;
- Black pepper, freshly ground - 1/6 tsp;
- Unrefined sunflower oil - 2-3 tbsp. l
How to cook eggplant caviar?
Eggplant for caviar can be prepared in two ways: boil or bake. In the first case, we boil the blue ones in boiling salted water for about 30 minutes, until soft. Drain the broth and immediately pour the eggplant with cold water, so that later it was easy to peel them. Chilled in water, we catch the blue ones, put them in a row on the kitchen board, top with another plate and place under the press, loading it with something heavy, such as a pan with water, for 2-3 hours while the excess liquid runs out. Then we remove the tails and remove the upper, thin layer of skin.
The second option is simpler: washed eggplants are tightly wrapped in foil for baking. It turns out very interesting "silver eggplant"! We place them in the oven, preheated to 200 ºC. Bake until soft, about 25-30 minutes. After letting it cool down, unwrap the baked eggplants and clean them from the tails and thin skins.
We chop eggplants on the board with a wide knife to a pasty state.
And we shift the preparation for caviar to the salad bowl.
Onions cleaned and cut into cubes, as small as possible.
Add chopped onions to blue ones.
Prepare tomatoes for caviar, as for gazpacho: after washing them out and making cross-shaped cuts from below, pour tomatoes with boiling water for 3-4 minutes. Then, drain the hot water, roll it over with cold - and the peel is easily removed.
We chop tomatoes like earlier eggplants. If you take strong tomatoes, you will get not mashed potatoes, but pieces. Therefore, if you want caviar of a more uniform consistency, it is better to take very ripe, soft tomatoes, or do not chop the flesh, but grate it on a large grater. Add tomato paste to eggplants and onions, mix.
Salt and pepper pepper from eggplants, mix again - always before filling with oil. If you first add oil, and then spices, then the oil film will not allow the vegetables to combine with the spices, and it will always seem that the caviar is under salted and underpowered. Therefore, first add salt and pepper, mix it up, taste it and, if it suits you, fill it with vegetable oil.
I recommend using “fried” sunflower oil, it is very fragrant, fragrant, caviar with it turns out tastier. If you like olive oil, you can try this option by taking unrefined oil of the first cold-pressing.
Stir once again, and the delicious eggplant caviar is ready! It can be served as an appetizer to side dishes of potatoes, cereals, pasta and meat dishes, and you can eat just with bread. Or just fry bread and spawn caviar on bruschetta - excellent Italian sandwiches with eggplant paste!
