Pickled Eggplant Two Ways

My first summer home from college was when I started teaching myself how to can food. For my mom’s birthday that spring I had got her two books on canning, The Ball Complete Book of Home Canning and The Joy of Pickling, with the intention that we could both learn how to can together when I came home. Somehow, however, I’ve been the only one to really use the books; Mom just didn’t have the same drive to can, I guess. One thing that I really enjoy about both books is that they have so many recipes for things I would never think of and that tantalize my taste buds just reading. And that there can be so many different variations on things. For instance, pickled eggplant. The Joy of Pickling has five different pickled eggplant recipes, three of which come from different countries in the Mediterranean. They all sound good, so I decided to try two of them; one to save for the winter and one that would be ready to eat within a week.

Pickled Eggplant Cubes

Makes 3 pints

3 cups white wine vinegar

2 ¼ lbs eggplants (2 good sized ones may weigh a little more, but that’s what I went with), peeled an cut into 3/8- to 1/2-inch cubes

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

¼ cup loosely packed small basil leaves (I love basil and I had a lot, so I probably used at least ½ cup)

2 teaspoons pickling salt

1. Sterilize your jars.
2. Bring the vinegar to a boil in a nonreactive saucepan. In 3 or 4 batches, blanch the eggplant in the vinegar for 2 minutes. Transfer the eggplant to a bowl with a slotted spoon.

3. Add the garlic, basil, and salt to the bowl, and toss the mixture.

4. Pack the eggplant and seasonings into pint mason jars. Return the vinegar to a boil and pour it over the eggplant, leaving ½ inch headspace.

5. Close the jars with hot two-piece caps. Process the jars for 10 minutes in a boiling-water

bath.

6. Store the cooled jars in a cool, dry, dark place for 1 week or longer before eating the

eggplant.

Now, before you make this let me tell you how it turned out: So vinegary I can’t stand to eat more than a single cube on its own. I smothered a few of them with hummus on a cracker and that was good, but still extremely strong. So far the most flavor balance I’ve achieved was with some pulled pork on a roll. But the best recommendation I can give would be to experiment with watering down the vinegar a good bit. Most other pickles that I’ve made-cucumbers, beets, mixed vegetables, carrots, beans, whatever-all use at least some water in the recipe and they’ve all turned out great. Maybe doing the blanching step in water and then pouring straight vinegar over them in the jars? Or just substituting half of the vinegar with water? If anyone tries a tweaked version I’d love to hear how it turns out. I’m also now looking for good ways to use up all of these intense vinegar bites if you have any ideas…

Lebanese Pickled Eggplant Stuffed with Garlic

1 ¼ lbs 3- to 4-inch long eggplants

1 garlic bulb, separated into cloves, the cloves peeled and crushed

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pickling salt

½ teaspoon cayenne

1 ½ cups red wine vinegar

¾ cup water

I added a big handful of parsley from the garden

1. Sterilize 1 quart jar.

2. Steam the eggplants 5-7 minutes, or until they are tender but not mushy. Let them cool.

3. Slit each eggplant once lengthwise, cutting most of the way through. Mix the garlic with the 1 tablespoon salt and the cayenne, and stuff the eggplants with this mixture. Pack the eggplants into a sterile 1-quart jar.

Little burgers!

4. In a nonreactive saucepan, bring to a boil the vinegar, water, and remaining 1 teaspoon salt, stirring to dissolve the salt. Let the liquid cool.

5. Fill the jar to the brim with the cooked liquid (top the jar off with a little more vinegar, if necessary). Cover the jar with a nonreactive cap. Let the jar stand in a cool place for 1-2 weeks.

6. If you don’t eat the pickles right away, store the jar in the refrigerator. The pickles will keep for at least several weeks.

Just sampled my first one of these a minute ago and it was goood. Not too strong on the vinegar at all, so maybe I'd try doing a 2:1 vinegar to water ratio for the eggplant cubes next time.