Last month was corn, and corn didn’t need me. Corn has publicists. Corn has a hype man in every farmers market stand and a hashtag and a season everyone counts down to like it’s a holiday. Eggplant gets none of that, and it’s the one doing the actual work, the one that can be silky or crisp or smoky or meaty depending entirely on how you treat it, which is more than corn can say for itself. So this month I’m making the case for the vegetable nobody’s throwing a parade for. Eggplant is the sleeper, the shape-shifter, and sort of an underdog!
I asked a few people what dish comes to mind when they think about eggplant, and the answers split about two ways: eggplant parm, Sunday sauce, the family table stuff, or the classic Chinese saucy side dish.
For me, it was always the Sunday sauce. Eggplant showing up sliced and salted on a paper towel on the counter before anyone had even said a word about dinner, my mom moving around the kitchen, the whole house smelling like garlic and frying oil. My mom would chop her garlic and soak it in oil for hours before cooking. The meal would hit the table around five. I wasn’t allowed near the stove, or really the kitchen… My mom is an amazing cook and would ask for help but didn't actually want help. I’ll be honest that is how I am in my kitchen as well.
So: eggplant is the star this month. Here’s where to find it, what to do with it, and where to eat it while it’s still at its peak.
At the market
Eggplant runs opposite corn on the calendar, and that’s good news for anyone who missed the corn window, although corn is very much still here. Eggplant loves heat; it’s hitting its stride right now, and it’s going to keep running strong through the end of summer and semi-deep into fall.
The market is where eggplant stops being one vegetable and starts being ten. The supermarket hands you the big glossy globe and calls it a day, like that’s the whole eggplant story. I beg you to walk through Union Square Market; you’ll find slender Japanese and Chinese eggplant, thin-skinned and barely seeded; they cook in a flash; squat little Indian eggplant, streaky purple and white Graffiti and Fairy Tale varieties; and pale ones that actually look like an egg. Norwich Meadows, the organic stand that’s anchored the market for more than twenty years, is where I’d start. Ask for Zaid, hes the farmer and knows everything you need to know. Find the table with five kinds you don’t recognize and just ask what to do with each one. Union Square runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Go early, do a full lap before you buy anything, bring cash, but they take cards too!
What to do with it:
My favorite way to cook eggplant is SIMPLE. LESS IS MORE.
My absolute go-to is barely a recipe: rough-chopped and roasted eggplant with olive oil, sesame oil, salt, and pepper, paired with creamy coconut rice. Key to success here is coconut oil + coconut milk! I love to top it with Bachan's OG sauce + sesame seeds. I can eat this for breakfast, as I do here. I could eat this for a snack, lunch, or dinner. It’s just one of those dishes.
Grill it and pair it with bread. All you need is eggplant, lemon, olive oil, zaatar, yogurt, garlic, dill, mint, and red onion. Recipe here!
Put it in a sandwich. Easy and delicious. I slice the eggplant thin, then salt it, pepper it, and add olive oil. Oil both sides of bread. Add prosciutto. Add something sweet; I went with peaches in this recipe. Add the roasted eggplant. Add burrata or mozzarella. More salt and pepper. DONE.
Skillet Eggplant Parm with Burrata and Tahini Hot Honey. That's correct. And so much easier than you might be imagining. Look out for the recipe coming out this month on Instagram.
Eggplants night out
Where to find my favorite eggplant dishes in New York, for the nights you don’t feel like cooking it yourself. None of these are specials or seasonal add ons, they’re dishes that have been sitting on these menus for years and aren’t going anywhere, so save this list. Every cuisine in this city claims eggplant as its own, so this one runs from a hundred year old red sauce joint straight through a Sichuan dining room to an Israeli sandwich counter, and it’s all the same vegetable doing all that work.
Bamonte’s has been doing the rollatini since 1900, in a Williamsburg room that looks like it hasn’t been touched since, and there’s something about eating eggplant in a place that old that makes it feel less like an order and more like a tradition you’re being let in on.
Bar Pitti’s melanzane alla parmigiana is the crisp, no fuss version, the kind of order regulars have been putting in at the sidewalk tables for years without ever having to look at the menu.
Rubirosa’s eggplant parm is thin and blistered, closer to a chip than a slab, which is exactly why it works.
Little Owl does the elegant version, the parmigiana that gets a table by the corner windows and a little more restraint than most, on the right side of rare, with a lovely sauce and crisp greens.
Regina’s Grocery built theirs into a sandwich, (i love a sandwich) the Cousin Steven, eggplant caponata and fresh mozzarella packed into a hollowed out stirato roll, a lunch counter staple since the shop opened.
Birds of a Feather is where eggplant gets fancy, the accordions, fish fragrant and fanned out across the plate, the dish that gets photographed at every table before anyone actually eats it.
Noury folds it into something quieter, market cucumbers and eggplant with yuzu kosho and myoga, less of a showpiece and more of a dish that just makes sense once it’s in front of you.
NILI, in Carroll Gardens, is the newest name on this list, but their baba ganoush already reads like a fixture, creamy instead of smoky, finished with a ginger aioli and za’atar that makes it taste more like fall than a dip has any right to.
And Thea, in Fort Greene, sells theirs by the container out of the provisions case, so if you want it in your own kitchen without making it yourself, that’s the move.
I hope that if you're not an eggplant lover, this gives you the space to give it a second chance. And if you're still not into it, I respect that. We can’t love it all. There will be a different food item next month :)
Xx
Gina