Last weekend my family hit a local farmer's market. I love going to markets without a plan. It's so much fun to look around, find something new, and then go home and figure out what to do with it. To be totally honest, there aren't really that many new produce items that we haven't tried, so last weekend it was new varieties that really stole the show.
This is a pile of fairy tale eggplants. These little guys are so beautiful, and so aptly named, it was really hard to resist buying a bag of them. I asked the farmer to describe them a bit and a woman who'd bought them there before, and was again, jumped in. She told me the woman who owned that particular farm had demonstrated an easy dish with the adorable eggplant just the week before. The instructions she passed on to me are basically the recipe below.
I looked up this eggplant online and discovered that I'm not the only one enamored of it. There weren't that many recipes for it's use, specifically, so I decided to stick with the simple recipe I was given at the market. Every source I found, however, did agree on the two most distinguishing characteristics of this eggplant variety: it is virtually seedless, and sweeter than an average eggplant.
This is one tip I found by snooping around online: break off the little pieces of the stem cap before cutting the stem from the top of the eggplant. This will save an inch or so of flesh, which is especially important for such a small variety.
Slice the eggplant in quarters lengthwise.
Saute in a little bit of olive oil until the white flesh begins to caramelize. This only takes a few minutes as the eggplants are so small. The skin is not as tough as the larger eggplants' can be, and my sources were right, the flesh is delicate, sweet, and has a great texture. Even my 1 and 4-year-olds loved them. They were delicious plain with roasted fish, and the leftovers were great stirred into some curried lentils.Apparently, the woman who grows these recommends seasoning with smoked salt. I have put that on my specialty shopping list, but until I can get some I'll keep using the regular kind. In the meantime, I already am mapping out my weekends so I can get back to her stall and grab another bag (or two) of these fairy tale eggplants. I'm such a sucker for cute and small, and delicious certainly doesn't hurt.
