Much to learn, and much to take care about: eggplant chili

One of the instructions we receive, over and over again when we cook, is to READ THE RECIPE.  Indeed, ragazzi, Annalena urges all of you, before you start a dish, be it one of her recipes, or someone else's, to read through the thing carefully.  Then make sure you have everything on hand,  else you become frustrated, or be ready with something that you are willing to risk as a substitution.  These issues were manifest in a dish Annalena prepared today:  eggplant chili.

To purists, of course, chili means meat, and only meat, with seasonings. And Annalena can get behind this.  So if you do not wish to call this dish a "chili," by all means, call it eggplant bean stew, or anything you like. Annalena is calling it a chili, because the seasonings are, essentially, those of a chili.

So, why the comments above?  Well, ragazzi, if Annalena sent you the recipe she worked from, and you followed them through, at some point you would be wondering why you forgot the corn, or the chocolate.  There is no corn, and there is no chocolate in this recipe.  They are not listed in the original ingredients. Yet, along the way, we are told to add the corn, and to melt the chocolate.  

With respect to the former, it was clear that corn was a misprint for carrots, because there ARE carrots in this recipe, and they are treated in a very interesting way.  But they disappear in the instructions for the dish.  Chocolate DOES appear in Mexican moles, but Annalena is unfamiliar with it in chili.  She COULD have put it in, but she didn't.  If you feel like you want to try a bit of bitterness, please melt an ounce (no more than that), of unsweetened chocolate at the end.  But first, let's get our recipe going.

The making of this dish was motivated by Annalena and the Guyman having received a variety of eggplant in their CSA box this week that they had never  before seen.  You will see it in the following picture, which represents the vegetable ingredients here:  

 Clearly, we have an Asian eggplant: you can see the difference with the standard, globe eggplants. Annalena is familiar with the Asian varieties, but this one, no.  So anyone who can add to the discussion with information about these rather unusual creatures, please feel free.

Our vegetables in this dish are carrots, eggplants, onions,  garlic, and jalapeno pepper.  Annalena made a double recipe, and that resulted in just under 3 quarts of chili.  Adjust your quantities down if you make less.

You will need 2 cups of carrots, in a rough dice.  Annalena had some yellow carrots, which is what she used. She is not a big fan of the rainbow carrot craze, and finds the yellow ones to be particularly starchy, and not at all sweet.  They go into the stew and soup pot.  You also need six cups of , "diced" eggplant.

Ragazzi, THAT was not going to happen.  Nor was Annalena about to peel these critters.  Absolutely not.  You can get away with that here, when they are small, and you are committed to cooking them properly. So, slice up your eggplant.  And then dice two onions, and also dice a whole bulb of garlic, where you have, of course, peeled the cloves.   And if you like spice in  your dish, dice a jalapeno pepper; however, you do not need to use this.

Chili is not chili without the spices, and here we go with these.  Cumin, ground, is basic to all chilis.  You will need two tablespoons of it.  You will comine this, with a teaspoon of cinnamon,  2 teaspoons of ground coriander,  2 teaspoons of a paprika of your choice, and then a teaspoon of chili powder. Annalena has chili powders in different heats, and she mixed them.

Now, the recipe also called for "two cans no salt added black beans, washed and drained."

Try to imagine Annalena putting a can of beans in her home.  Nope.  She had a pound of dried reddish black beans from Rancho Gordo  (she thinks they were ayocado morado beans, but she's going to check).  She cooked the entire pound of them earlier in the day.  Annalena would prefer you cook your beans from dry rather than use canned ones. If you must... well, no, you can cook beans very easily.  

When you have prepared all of your ingredients,  you have something like this:

 Annalena cooks, she does not clean.   Farcela as the Italians say (deal with it).  And here we go.  Get your biggest ,heaviest skilled out, and heat it up.  Add your carrots to the pan, DRY.  No oil, no nothing.  Just stir them, at medium high heat, for about 5-6 minutes, until you get a little bit of brown color:

 Put them aside, as Annalena has, in a bowl.  Now, add two tablespoons of olive oil to that hot pan.  You'll smell the oil right away.  Add your six cups of eggplant.  Drop the heat to medium, and be ready to be patient. Eggplant will suck up the oil immediately, but if you're patient, and you stir the buggers, after about ten minutes, you will get browning, the oil will release and you will have nice, soft eggplant:

 These, too, go into the bowl with the carrots.

 We now add another tablespoon of olive oil, and then our garlic.  By now, the pan is very hot, and the garlic will cook in seconds.  To slow it from burning, add the onions, which are loaded with water, and will actually preserve the garlic from burning.  Keep a medium heat, and stir, for about five minutes.  You'll see the water coming off of the onions:

 Next, take those dried spices and the jalapeno if you're using it, and toss them into the onions. Stir everything together.  Ragazzi, the fragrance may drive you wild.  Calm down. Pace pace mio dio.    You will have dinner very soon.   You cook these for another five minutes or so.

 Now, in the original recipe, we are called upon to add "1 can diced tomatoes with juices."  Uh, what size can you may ask?  No direction.  Annalena used two 14 ounce cans of one of her new favorite ingredients:  canned cherry tomatoes.  These go right into the onion mix, and rather than add a cup of vegetable broth (Annalena has never found one she likes), she added water):

You also add the beans at this point, and then you lower the heat, and cook for 15 minutes, at a simmer.  You should be tasting along the way, and adjusting salt: this recipe takes a LOT of salt relatively speaking.

Okay, so after fifteen minutes, you have that wet mess at the top and you begin wondering  "this is CHILI?"  Yes, it is.  Because now, you add the eggplant and the carrots you cooked before.  Let this cook for ten minutes, and that eggplant, which is almost like a sponge, will pick it all up:

At this point, ragazzi, you should taste the dish, which is complete, and add what you feel it needs:  do you want lime juice?  If you do, take it off the heat.  Do you want more heat?  More salt? More liquid?  Much will depend on what you plan to serve with it.  Annalena will be serving it with her favorite pozole, and may very well add a dollop of sour cream and some cheddar cheese to it, and take it out of the realm of vegan food, but you should do what you like at this point. 

This is not really a difficult dish to do.  As with all dishes, prepare ahead of time.  Make your beans (please make your beans from scratch), and you will be very, VERY happy with this dish. 

Local eggplant will not be with us for long, so use it as many ways as you can.  

You may want to think of this as Mexican eggplant caponata.  Annalena gives you permission. However you call it, please make it, please eat it.  And, more than anything else, PLEASE share it, ragazzi.  Seriously, we are coming into the time of the year when sharing is a major theme.  Your food will taste SO much better to you, if you share it. Annalena vouches for that.  

So, ragazzi, enjoy your curry at this feast of Hallows, and be ready for our next recipe, which is a very interesting, easy and tasty soup, using an ingredient you associate with sandwiches for children.  Stay tuned...