Fresh Jersey cherries. If they last until tomorrow, I might just make something with them. :)
All of it just picked at the height of ripeness. I just love this time of year. I whipped up a fantastic dinner with all of this goodness, Tarragon Eggplant and Tofu Stacks. Recipe will follow after my photo essay.
Drawing the moisture out of eggplant helps to keep it from getting mushy later. If you happen to like mushy eggplant, skip this step. But I'm warning you, it will be mushy.
Yup, that's tofu alright. If you were fooled by the photo, just wait until you taste it!
Ahem, I now present you with the finished dish. Let's just say, I would not be able to recreate this in the time allowed on the Iron Chef. Now I'll try and remember the recipe - I just kind of made this up as I went along.
Tarragon Eggplant and Tofu Stacks Recipe (4 to 6 servings)
1 medium eggplant
coarse salt
1 medium egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 c. Italian style breadcrumbs
1/4 c. tarragon (plus some extra for sprinkling)
Canola oil
1 package of extra firm tofu
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup roughly cut vidalia onion
fine salt
paprika (optional)
1 tbsp chopped scallion (optional)
2 c. diced tomatoes (or a can)
shaved peccorino (optional)
1. Cut eggplant lengthwise and lay on a bakers rack or cookie cooling rack. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Coarse salt works best because you can wash it off later. Let the salt wick the moisture out of the eggplant for about an hour (go get a pedicure or something).
2. When you get back from the pedi, wash off all the salt from the eggplant and dry it off with some paper towels.
3. This would be a good time to prep the tofu. If you have an extra hand in the kitchen, they can start this step earlier. Cut the tofu long ways into 1/8" slabs. You should be able to get about 6 slabs.
4. Tofu also has a lot of water in it (duh, it's packed in water). So you probably want to drain it or else it will be mushy. Unless you like mushy tofu along with your mushy eggplant, then you can skip this step. I don't like mushy tofu. Place the slabs (sounds so appetizing) of tofu between layers of paper towels or kitchen towels. Place a heavy object or pot of water on top and let it sit there for a while.
5. Put about 2" of oil in a large skillet. Canola oil works well, Vegetable oil works too. You can even get fancy and mix some olive oil with canola oil. Don't use only olive oil. The smoking point of olive oil is too low to get the oil hot enough to fry this eggplant. Turn the burner on medium to high. While you're at it, you should pre-heat your oven too. 450 degrees.
6. Line the bottom of a baking dish with the tofu. Sprinkle the salt, tarragon, paprika, roughly chopped garlic, scallion, and roughly chopped onion on it. Set aside until the oven reaches 450, at which point you'll put it in the oven.
7. Start the assembly line going. Break the egg in a medium bowl (something big enough to fit the eggplant slices in) and whisk it together with the milk.
8. On a plate, mix the breadcrumbs with the tarragon. The tarragon is going to give this dish a little sweetness that you don't get with the typical Italian herbs like basil or oregano.
9. Dip the eggplant into the egg mixture and coat evenly. Then dip it in the breadcrumbs and coat evenly again. Do this with all of the eggplant and put them on a clean plate (umm, a dirty one would work too, but that's gross).
10. By this time, the oil should be piping hot. To check it, toss a few (emphasis on "few") breadcrumbs into the oil. If it bubbles quickly and rises to the top of the oil, you're in business. If it sinks to the bottom, the oil is not hot enough.
11. Carefully place the eggplant into the oil. Fry it until it is dark brown on both sides. Depending on the size of your skillet, you may only be able to fry one or two of them at a time. If you put too many of them in the oil, the oil will cool off and it won't fry as well. The object here is to fry it pretty quickly so it doesn't just sit in there soaking up all the oil. Should take a total of about 3 minutes per eggplant.
12. If you haven't put the tofu in the oven, you might want to do that now. Keep it in there until it's browned.
13. Continue frying eggplant until it's all done. Once each one is done, place it on a paper towel to wick the oil away.
14. Heat the can of diced tomatoes in the microwave for about a minute.
15. Start assembling the stacks. Place an eggplant slice on the bottom, next a tofu slice, next an eggplant slice and finally top the stack with the diced tomatoes. Shave a little peccorino on top and enjoy.
An alternative to this would be to roll up the tofu in the eggplant, similar to eggplant rollatini except without the cheese.
Wow - that took just about as long to type as it did to make it. I hope it's worth it :)
*k*
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