Eggplant Spread

I've been cataloging all these cookbooks for the school and I came across this one: Jennie Grossinger's The Art of Jewish Cooking. I was very interested when I saw recipe after recipe on noodles and noodle variations that I was familiar with by way of my dad's mom. Grandma Eva was the noodle making queen in my book. I have fond memories of noodle and pie making with her.

I know some but not enough of my family history so as I was browsing this book my questions began mounting. I know that my dad's dad was Jewish-German. Hence the name Klein, or Small in German. But, I wasn't so sure about his mom.

I finally got a hold of an uncle that is still living and started asking questions about the Haydens. Seems the story is not so glamorous as I had thought. Grandma learned to cook in a home economics class in high school. Hmmm... Well, truly it doesn't matter. She passed her love of cooking on to me as did my mom's mom, and my mom. Put them all together and rolled all into one LOVE for the kitchen and all things yummy.

One of the recipes that grabbed my attention was this Eggplant Spread, featured above. Now, I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE eggplant. Generally we throw it on the grill in the summertime. I do have some in the freezer but I sent the hubby to the grocery for some the other day anyway.

The recipe is not explicit whether or not you halve the eggplant and clean out the seeds or not. So since it lead me to think it was to be baked whole that's what I did. After peeling it and coming across the baked seeds I was a little grossed out. Baked eggplant seeds are... well... yuck is the best word I can come up with and pulling them out was just ewww..... I was unable to "chop" the eggplant into smoothness so I threw it into my bullet and beat it into submission. It came out looking somewhat like baby food. Of course I tasted it and believe it or not the only taste was - warm. That is if warm can be a taste, more like it was tasteless.

There seemed to be quite a bit of oil, SALT, pepper and lemon juice enough to kill a horse BUT, I was in to see what it was like and boy-buddy did I find out. Let's just say in the end I DID-NOT add the amount of salt the recipe calls for. I just couldn't. I ended up with about 3/4 of a teaspoon. Only because my husband dared me to put the entire amount in.

The warm version of the spread left a lot to be desired. Jeff and I were both making faces. But the recipe called for chilling so I covered it and placed it in the fridge. Two hours or so later we pulled it out and tried it again. We used warm tortilla chips in loo of dark bread. All in all, it wasn't bad. It actually kinda grew on me. Hubby said the same thing. It has a bite that was something different and that was the goal, to try something different. So, having reached the goal, I hate to say it but I probably won't make this again. Ha!

If you can't read the recipe is goes like this:

Eggplant Spread
1 medium eggplant
3 tablespoons minced onion
2 tablespoon salad or olive oil
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon sugar

Bake the eggplant in a 475F oven until skin turns dark brown. Cool and peel. Chop the eggplant until very smooth. Stir in the onion, oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and sugar. Chill. Serve with dark bread and wedges of tomatoes. Serves 4-6

Let me know if you try it. Or better yet, if your family has a variation of this spread I would LOVE to hear it. And, yes! I will try it.

Enjoy!
Kerri Downey