I gave a canning class today where we made pink grapefruit marmalade and carrot and cauliflower giardiniera. And if you’ve never heard of giardiniera, you’re not alone…and you’re not Italian. Italians have some great pickled vegetable recipes, one of the most popular being eggplants preserved in olive oil. Often you’ll see them grilled and then drowned in olive oil, but they last longer if you poach them first in red wine vinegar, which is what I did with my heaps and heaps of summer eggplant.
It’s too late in the season for a box of 30 eggplant for $8, but it’s still not too late to make this recipe. Channel your inner Italian grandmother and don’t bat an eye at the heaps of olive oil involved. You don’t eat all that oil at once. You dress a few crostini in it. Or you serve it with aged sheep’s milk cheeses and salumi (charcuterie for Italians). Or, for us sad gluten intolerants, you slather it on rice cakes and dream of sourdough…
Italian Eggplant Antipasti in Olive Oil
6 Italian eggplants (dark, dark purple ones)
1/2 cup Kosher Salt
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
Red or white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
Slice the eggplant 1/4-inch thick, and cut the slices into 1/4-inch thin strips.
Layer the strips in a colander, sprinkling with salt as you. Once all the eggplant are layered, toss them together with the remaining salt. Place the colander in a sink or above a bowl. Place a dish on top and weigh it down with some heavy, like a book or another bowl. Leave the colander for an hour to let the bitterness and liquid drain out of the eggplant.
Squeeze the eggplant slices (but don’t completely crush them) to release the rest of the bitter juices. Place in a large pot with the garlic and twice as much vinegar as water (2 cups of vinegar to every 1 cup of water, until the eggplant slices are completely covered). Bring the pot to a boil and immediately turn off the heat. Let the eggplant cool for 30 minutes in the liquid.
Drain the eggplant, squeezing out as much of the liquid as you can without turning the slices to mush. Place in a large bowl with a cup of olive oil and 1/4 cup of vinegar. Stir to combine. Transfer to sterilized jars (run the jars through the dishwasher or place them in the oven at 220F for 20 minutes). Press down to remove any air bubbles, leaving at least an inch of space at the top of the jar. Pour olive oil over top so that the eggplant is completely submerged. Cover and leave in the fridge at least a couple days, then eat within a couple months or so…If you keep topping it up with olive oil each time you take some eggplant out, and there are no air bubbles that cause mold to form in the eggplant, it could last even longer.
Always store in the fridge. And discard at the first appearance of mold.
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