Provençal Roasted Eggplant with Tomatoes and Onions
This roasted eggplant dish is very representative of Provençal cooking. Eggplant, tomato, and onion is an age-old trinity of flavors of the Southern French region. Slices of garlic and a scatter of parsley finish it off.
This is a rustic dish, quick to prepare, and full of summer flavor.
Prepare the topping: onions, tomato, garlic, and parsley
Arrange the eggplant slices in one layer
Straight from the oven, tender and moist
Heat & Knives
The Recipe
Source: The Lutèce Cookbook by André Soltner
1/2 cup olive oil
3 medium onions, peeled and sliced
2 pounds tomatoes–the tomatoes must be ripe
1 bouquet garni
3 garlic cloves, peeled, green germs removed, and chopped fine
salt
pepper, fresh ground
2 pounds small eggplants, unpeeled
3 garlic cloves, peeled, green germs removed, and cut into thin slivers
In a skillet, heat half the oil. Gently saute the onions until they are soft. Do not brown.
Cut a conical plug from the stem end of each tomato and discard. Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for 10 seconds, drain them under cold water, and peel off the skins. Cut the tomatoes in half, squeeze out and discard the juices and seeds, and chop the pulp fine.
Add the tomatoes to the onions. Add the bouquet garni, the chopped garlic (but not the garlic that is cut in thin slivers), salt, and pepper. Bring the skillet to the boil, and cook gently for 15 minutes.
Slice the eggplant, from end to end, in 3/4-inch-thick slices. Stick the thin slivers of garlic into the surfaces of the slices of eggplant.
Preheat the oven to 300.
Oil an ovenproof gratin dish with some of the olive oil. Salt the gratin dish. Arrange the slices of eggplant in the dish and cover them with the tomato-and-onion mixture. Sprinkle the remaining olive oil over the top.
Put the gratin dish in the preheated oven, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Serve hot.
