Re: [CH] Recipe Search: Eggplant Chili

Inagaddadavida, Baby (raelsixfour@home.com)
Sun, 12 Aug 2001 19:04:02 -0600

>The most bountiful vegetable in our summer garden is eggplant. My wife
>has found many Italian and Greek recipes that use eggplant but nothing
>Tex-Mex. Does anyone have a eggplant chili or eggplant Tex-Mex recipe
>they care to share?

deepfried eggplant is deeeee-lish assuming one ain't afraid of fried 
foods, and the process is fairly simple too.  In a nutshell:

*flour for dredging
*milk/egg wash (1 egg to 1/2 cup milk)
*breadcrumbs, seasoned with your favorite "tex-mex"/cajun seasoning, 
or whatever...i've a tried and true "recipe" from Paul Prudhomme if 
desired.

Follow your basic breading proceedure and go, mon, go...

I also think eggplant would be good added into a basic chili recipe 
or other stew-like dishes as it tends to cook down but adds flavor. 
For example, tonight for dinner into a pot I threw some white beans, 
a cooked hamburger, some leftover marinara, water, basil, oregano, a 
bit of grnd cumin, thought about sage but desided against it, some 
sea salt, and some ground chile; let it all cook on a low simmer for 
about 1 hour (maybe).  What was it?  White bean ragu' ? White bean 
chili?  Beats me, but it was *damn* tasty...

...and to get back to the Point of Eggplant (PE):

some roasted eggplant would have added a very interesting (good) 
dimension to the dish, methinks.  Roasted eggplant (entire eggplant 
into a very very hot oven, e.g. 500 degrees F, until soft to the 
grasp...they will burn tho!) is quite good mixed into other things. 
Has a unique favor, i think.

Anywho...suggestions you desired.

Peace, Hendrix, and Chiles.......
Rael64