Tag: aubergines

How to make bruschetta with aubergines – Italian Cuisine

If there is one thing that never fails during the summer evenings in the company, they are the bruschetta. We prepare them with a seasonal ingredient: eggplants!

The bruschettas are tasty, simple and beautiful to serve because they can be seasoned in a thousand ways, with different ingredients, from vegetables to creams, from cheeses to cold cuts, and everyone always likes them.

And among all the bruschetta that can be done, in the summer they cannot miss those with eggplant which are an excellent seasonal vegetable.
But how many ways can eggplants be prepared to enrich a bruschetta? We offer you at least five. But first, here are some tips.

Bruschette: which bread?

Choose a fresh bread with a crispy crust. Avoid bread enriched with olives, walnuts or other because it would overload the simple taste of bruschetta. The classic is ideal pugliese bread, the Tuscan or any type of homemade bread, with or without salt. You can toast the bread on a hot plate, in the oven or on the barbecue. Do it just before serving the bruschetta so they will be hot and crunchy. Remember to always dress with a little oil and that it is an excellent extra virgin olive oil.

How to choose aubergines

Aubergines are in season from June to October and the freshest ones are recognizable from the skin that is shiny and well stretched, without wrinkles and dents. If you prefer a sweet taste choose the clear and round variant, otherwise the longer one with a dark skin and a bitter aftertaste. If you use dark ones, always remember to work them first with salt to eliminate the bitter taste. To make it cut and not too thin slices and sprinkle with coarse salt. Then place them in a colander and cover them with a weight that can be a large plate or a lid. After an hour or two, wash and dry them.

Cover them during cooking to soften them. If you want to leave them crispy and firm, instead, salt them over a high heat without a lid until they are toasted. You can add it to flavor tomatoes and plenty of fresh basil. Make the bruschetta with the aubergines and a few cubes of mozzarella and bake them again for a minute. Also excellent with burrata and grated lemon rind.

Aubergines in oil

Always keep a jar of eggplant in oil in the pantry because it will come in handy whenever you feel like a delicious vegetable bruschetta. Drain the aubergines well before putting them on the warm bread and add the chopped parsley and if you want also a sliced ham or ham.

Eggplant cream

To prepare an eggplant cream you have two alternatives. You can put an entire eggplant pierced with a fork and wrapped in aluminum foil in the oven at 200 ° for 30 minutes. Once soft, remove the peel and blend the inside with salt, garlic, oil and parsley, preparing a sort of baba ganoush, a cream typical of Middle Eastern cuisine.
Alternatively, cook the aubergines in the pan with the lid as we suggested before, and once they are soft, blend them adding oil.

Baked aubergines

If you do not feel like grilling aubergines, you can also cut them into slices and cook them in the oven, perhaps sprinkling them with breadcrumbs and Parmesan to make them crunchy and tastier. Then accompany them on the bruschetta with the sausage or with a very tasty spreadable cheese.
Alternatively, make some aubergine pizzas by sprinkling each slice, once cooked, with tomato and mozzarella before baking it again for a couple of minutes. These bruschettas will also appeal to children.

With the aubergines there are then these unusual recipes to experiment and all the ways to use those grills!

Baked aubergines: the best recipes – Italian Cuisine

Low in calories but full of flavor, le eggplant they are a very popular vegetable in the kitchen. And they also have many nutritional qualities: containing a high percentage of water, they have appreciated purifying and diuretic properties. In the kitchen, they are an appetizing ingredient. Whether they are elongated or roundish or oval, with an intense purple or white or even red skin, aubergines, baked in the oven, become even more appetizing.

Salt & Pepper suggests the best recipes of baked eggplant, for tasty side dishes or nutritious and surprising second courses.

If you want a rich and succulent dish, bring to the table Stuffed baked aubergines: the filling is super ghiotta, a mix of eggplant pulp, tomato pulp, anchovies, capers, black Gaeta olives.

Or prepare the Baked aubergines according to the Greek recipe: Cheese and minced meat fill these succulent eggplant boats, a guaranteed goodness.

Being a detox vegetable, here is the baked eggplant also give birth to diet recipes for those keeping to the line. If you aim for lightness, try cooking Light eggplants parmigiana, gourmet variant of grilled aubergine parmigiana: thanks to the "melting" and the unique taste of raw burrata, it will conquer even the most demanding palates. Or the Onions with eggplant cream, a game of consistencies really pleasant and refined, between the gratin and the very soft filling; accompany them with toasted bread slices, seasoned with a drizzle of oil and a pinch of salt, and a side dish of salad with seasonal vegetables.

Eggplants marry very well also with the flavors of the sea: cuisine Eggplant and swordfish rolls, for a special dinner. On each slice of roasted eggplant you have to lay 1 slice of sword, pine nuts, raisins, grated pecorino and breadcrumbs. Or prepare the Monkfish in aubergine pastry, a high class dish that enhances the characteristics of Mediterranean cuisine: the monkfish is wrapped in aubergine slices, very thin and fried.

Eggplants can also become a fun first course: nei Cannelloni Eggplant they replace the puff pastry and become chests of a tasty ham, scamorza, egg and tomato filling. They are simple to make and perfect even as a main dish.

Browse the recipes that we offer you and choose the one that suits you best. Success is assured.

Parmigiana? Yes, but not only with aubergines! – Italian Cuisine

Parmigiana is one of the typical dishes of Italian cuisine, but this classic can be revisited with different vegetables. Here are some ideas

The classic is inimitable, but it is not said that there cannot be as many delicious ones done in a different way. What are we talking about? Of the parmigiana!

One of the typical dishes of Italian cuisine, most likely of origin Sicilian (with consequent arrival under Vesuvius) and Parmesan contamination (hence the name) lends itself to many recipes with vegetables different to be the protagonists.

Eggplant parmigiana

Let's start of course from the more one classical, the one that embodies the true Sicilian-Neapolitan spirit of Italian cuisine, a traditional dish that never changes, full of flavor, harmony between ingredients and Mediterranean scents. There recipe provides the exclusive use of mozzarella and not stringy cheese to keep aubergines, a rich tomato sauce to be made at home with sautéed onion or shallot and to be embellished with tomato. Last, but essential, aubergines, which in the classic recipe of Parmesan must be fried, even if there are variations light of this famous dish with vegetables prepared on the grill or al vapor. The flavor will not be as intense as the classic one but the result is always guaranteed.

Zucchini parmigiana

Parmesan does not live alone on aubergines! The recipe can be made by changing the vegetable that is the protagonist of the dish.

The most famous is perhaps that of zucchini, with breaded and fried or just fried vegetables (depending on your taste), baked or pan-fried, and with the bechamel instead of the sauce for a "white" version.

Eggplants and zucchini can also be used together, for a mix in which the tastes of the two vegetables blend together, in this case, from sliced tomatoes. The advice is that of all to grill the vegetables and season them with the mozzarella cheese (always eliminating the water, it is one of the secrets for all the Parmigiane) and the Parmesan before passing them in the oven for about 10 minutes to make them flavor further.

The other Parmesan

On the other hand, those who love experimenting in the kitchen can opt for less classic versions of Parmesan. One of the tastiest is made with the pumpkin. Simple to make and rich in taste, the pumpkin parmigiana provides the possibility of to fry the vegetables after having sliced or breaded and cooked in the oven, depends on the taste you want to give the dish. What should not change compared to the classic version of the recipe is the use of mozzarella, in this case in fact the use of the tomato sauce not recommended. To enrich the taste, it will be abundant to parmesan.

The parmigiana of potatoes it is perhaps the richest variant. It is prepared white with the béchamel and embellished with cooked ham or speck, with the provolone (maybe smoked) to give even more flavor to the dish. It is cooked in oven in less than 50 minutes and the advice is to blanch the potatoes for about 10 minutes before cutting them and placing them in the pan.

There are also high less known versions of parmigiana to be prepared for example with le carrots (to always associate with a very tasty cheese) or with the escarole, in which the vegetables should be seasoned in the sauce already during the preparation and before being baked.

A very light version of parmigiana is the one with i thistles, to be boiled in water for an hour before assembling them in the pan to bake them with bechamel sauce. Side Dishes the Parmigiane di can be delicious or unique dishes artichokes, to be enriched with cooked ham and boiled eggs, that of asparagus, to be boiled before seasoning and put in the oven with the sauce and that of fennel, to prepare with burrata instead of mozzarella.