After misplacing recipe long ago, our T.L. test cook improvises
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Ingredients in this Easy Eggplant Bake include eggplant plus garlic, garbanzo beans, herbs, tomatoes, cheese, onions and olive oil.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
The first layer in the casserole dish consists of sliced eggplant, drizzled on both sides with olive oil.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
The second layer consists of hummus, spread evenly over the eggplant slices.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
The tomatoes, which cover the hummus, look different on the right side and the left side of the pan. On the right are sliced tomatoes; on the left are tomatoes that I skinned and stewed. They tasted equally good, so I recommend whatever you find easiest, including a can of diced tomatoes.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Herbs and cheese are the final layers, which are resting on top of a layer of grated cheese and sauteed onions, which are on top of the tomatoes.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
The finished product is a savory feast for the senses.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
The finished product is a savory feast for the senses.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
The finished product is a savory feast for the senses.
Do you remember a little playground ditty that started out “on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese?”
Set to the tune of the old folk song “On Top of Old Smokey” the lyrics talked about losing a meatball “when somebody sneezed. It rolled off the table, and onto the floor, and then my poor meatball rolled right out the door.”
That song zipped through my head the first time I followed a recipe for a summer casserole that called for a layer of garbanzo beans between a layer of eggplant and a layer of tomatoes.
It wasn’t that anyone was sneezing, and the little round garbanzos were never seriously in danger of rolling off the table and out the door, but they did seem to roll around on the plates quite a bit as people stabbed at them with their forks.
So the second time I made the dish, I mashed the beans into a hummus and spread them over the eggplant to prevent them from rolling around.
I‘m pretty sure the recipe — which I’ve long ago misplaced — called for the eggplant to be diced into 1/2-inch cubes, then drizzled and tossed with olive oil.
But by the third time I made the dish, I’d decided it would be easier to just slice the eggplant, brush each slice with olive oil, and line the bottom of the casserole dish with the slices.
At that point, if my life were accompanied by a Greek chorus the way some classic dramas are, the singers would probably have been chanting something like, “Great Zeus! Is there no limit to your laziness? You want to slice instead of dice?”
More recently, the chorus could be taking up another chant: “You’ve lost that recipe, haven’t you? And now the eggplants at the Farmers Market look so plump and purple and shiny. Whatever will you do?”
Well, descending to the underworld wouldn’t work. Neither would trying to steal fire from the gods.
Consulting the Internet was a safer bet. So I did some online research but didn’t find anything that matched my recollection of the eggplant recipe I’d lost long ago.
So I made up a recipe as I went along, starting with fresh eggplant slices, drizzled with olive oil for the bottom layer.
Next came a layer of homemade hummus, in this case simply a blend of garbanzo beans, garlic, olive oil and something tangy —if you want to know the truth I didn’t have a lemon on hand so I used a dash of vinegar.
The third layer was made of tomatoes, and while I used some freshly picked from the garden you can easily use a large can of diced ones. (What I actually did was divide my tomato layer in half, as an experiment. On top of half the pan of ingredients, I placed slices of raw tomatoes. On top of the other half I placed tomatoes that I had peeled and stewed. The result: both sides seemed to taste equally good. So there’s no need to stew the tomatoes.)
For a fourth layer, I added an onion, sliced and sauteed, and the fifth layer was about 8 ounces, combined, of grated Parmesan and sharp cheddar, which happened to be the two cheeses I had on hand. Mozzarella would certainly have worked, too.
The last layer was a small bouquet of garden herbs — in this case basil, parsley and sage — chopped.
The casserole smelled wonderful while it was cooking, and it pleased this week’s taste testers, who included husband Mark and mom Marion. And now I’ll share it with you.
MT’s EASY EGGPLANT BAKE
1 medium purple eggplant
3 (15 ounce each) cans of garbanzo beans
3 cloves of garlic
several tablespoons olive oil
dash of lemon juice or vinegar
28-ounce can of diced tomatoes or use fresh tomato slices
1 onion
8 ounces of grated cheese
Chopped herbs for garnish
Slice the eggplant into 1/4-inch slices, drizzle both sides with olive oil and line bottom of 9×13-inch baking dish with them.
Using a food processor or a hand masher, blend together garbanzo beans, 3 garlic cloves, about 2 tablespoons of olive oil plus a dash of lemon juice or vinegar. That makes several cups of hummus to spread over the eggplant, as the second layer.
For the third layer, the tomato layer, use either 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes or a few fresh tomatoes, sliced, to cover the hummus.
If you like onions, the fourth layer can be an onion, sliced and sauteed in about 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
After that, grate and add your favorite cheese, plus a small amount of fresh herbs for garnish and bake, covered, at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving and add a few more chopped herbs to the top if you like.
