Learning a canonical dish: eggplant tian

Annalena loves eggplant, but... well, she realized a few weeks ago that her acquaintance with this vegetable was somewhat limited. She is proud of her eggplant parmagiana, and has found few caponatas that compare to hers. Also, a bowl of baba ghanouj is always welcome, but she feels that that is more about the tahini than the eggplant. Fried eggplant slices? Well, yes, thank you very much.Ratatatatatouille (and not the mouse). yes. And then.... As Hamlet said 'the rest is silence."

Something needed to be done about this, and that is why you have the wonderful potato eggplant stew of last week. And we pressed on.

For years, Annalena has heard of a classic, southern French dish called a "tian." Like "clafouti," this is probably a dialectical word that has now become "French." Most times Annalena heard of it, it involved eggplant. So, she set out to find a recipe, thinking how hard could this be?

It was like the search for a cassoulet recipe. I think I found about a dozen of them, all different. Also, it seems that some cooks don't want to call it a "tian," and call it a gratin, which it certainly is NOT (no cheese in this, if you make it classically). So, after much hunting and searching, and watching a video (more on that below), Annalena found her tian recipe. It is presented here, but with the note that given what is out there, you can do this many different ways. I shall try to summarize some of them for you as we go along, but it is up to you.

Essentially, the required elements for a tian are eggplant, tomatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, and fresh herbs. It is a baked casserole, using slices of the relevant vegetables. Always, these include the tomatoes and the eggplant. Sometimes, the onions are sliced, and sometimes, zucchini is also used. Mine uses just the eggplant and tomatoes. You need about equal amounts of these: let's say 2.5 pounds of each. For your eggplants, try to get smaller ones, because you are going to be doing overlapping slices, with the tomatoes, and you don't want slices much bigger than a tomato slice. If you want, you can also use the onions, as indicated, in sliced form. Then you will need equal amounts of all three and, if using zucchini, the four.

For my version, slice the eggplant and the tomatoes thickly, but do not skin the eggplant. You do have to cook it beforehand, and here's where another variation comes in. Many recipes call for you to either bake it or broil it. Annalena fried hers in a little oil, after salting it. Do know that eggplant is the sponge of the vegetable world, so there's a challenging balance of putting in enough oil to cook it, but not too little. Interestingly, if there is too little oil, eggplant will suck it up. If you use plenty, it will not. Anyway, fry the slices in oil that is really hot, for about two minutes on a side. You just want some color. Put them aside while you do the next step.

In some recipes, including the video where onion slices were cooked just like the eggplant, the cook rubbed ONE MEASLY CLOVE of garlic over the baking dish. Annalena had none of this. Other versions chop the onion and garlic together, and saute' them to softness. That is what I did. Two large onions, chopped with no regard to surgical precision, and four cloves of finely chopped garlic. You can use the olive oil from the eggplant, and, since the order of cooking, doesn't matter, you can also cook the onions first, and the use that oil for the eggplant. In either case, you are probably going to need to augment what's in the pan, when you get to the second vegetable.

Cook the onions and garlic with some salt and a few sprigs of thyme (my choice. You could use other herbs, or leave them out. Put the sauteed onion mix on the bottom of a 9x13 inch non metallic baking dish . Now, get those eggplants and tomatoes and have some fun: lay them out in rows, overlapping about half to 2/3 of the first slice with the second one, and so on and so forth. Alternate eggplant and tomato, until you fill the pan. I put some more fresh herbs on top of this (more thyme and some basil). Some would have you add more olive oil, but I don't think this is necessary. Cover the baking dish with foil, put it in a preheated oven at 375 for 45 minutes, and then take off the foil and bake for another 15.

This may look very watery when it comes out of the oven. Patience. It will "congeal" very nicely.

Now, if you want to "gratinize" this, then add some cheese and pop it under the broiler. There are other versions which add a custard, like a saffron custard to it, and bake some more. To Annalena's taste, this is about the vegetables, so I will leave it as it is.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Not a whole lot of work, and very tasty.

And those of you waiting for the cabernet sauvignon sorbet, will just have to wait a bit longer...