The Forgotten Comfort Veg - Eggplant

Jeff Green | Sep 04, 2025

It is sometimes hard to find eggplants in the local grocery stores, but this time of year they tend to be in stock.

While there are many varieties of eggplants available in stores with an Italian or Middle Eastern clientele, in our stores they tend to be the large, shiny, black variety, which are good but have a bit of short shelf life.

One of the problems with eggplants is that too many people don’t know the simple tricks that turn them into a delicious comfort food that pairs perfectly with field tomatoes, which are not as plentiful this year as they normally are because of the dry weather in the ripening season.

Luckily for Sharbot Lake Market fans, Fen Valley grew some beautiful, compact Sicilian eggplants this year. They are beautiful in appearance and have a creamy texture and mild flavour when cooked.

Here are a few fool-proof ways to prepare eggplants

The easiest, and one of the best ways to eat eggplant, is on a sandwich. To do this, slice the eggplant in rounds ½ inched thick. Heat oil in a fry pan ¼ inch deep, on medium high heat. I use olive oil for this, even though the price has gone way up, and you can mix it with other vegetable oils.  Once the oil is hot enough that the slices of eggplant immediately start to sizzle when placed in the pan, arrange the slices in the bottom of the pan, to fill. There will likely be more eggplant than fits in the pan. Eggplant tends to soak up oil, especially when first dropped in the pan, so a little more oil may be required. As the slices brown and crisp up, flip them. Once the eggplant flesh has softened and the edges are crisping up, they will release some of the oil that they soaked up.

Remove them and place on a plate. Add more eggplant to the pan, until they are all done. The prepared eggplant can go on any sandwich, some of the oil as well. One of the best options is to put the slice of eggplant down first, then add cooked chicken breast, avocado, mayo, tomato, Dijon mustard, on sourdough or rye bread. Grain and Goods bakery rye or sourdough, or the fresh bread available at Seed to Sausage  - the caraway rye in particular, brings out the flavour and texture of the ingredients.

Another easy way to make a feast of seasonal eggplant, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, is with a Turkish dish called Iman Bayildi (The  Imam Fainted)

The name of this dish is a reference to how much olive oil is used in this dish, but it does not actually have to be that much when made in the following way.

Start with two or three eggplants, of the size in the attached photo. Place them in a glass pyrex dish or a baking sheet with a reasonably deep edge. Cut them from the blossom end straight through the middle to the root end to reveal the maximum amount of eggplant flesh. Using a metal spoon or knife, remove about half of the flesh.

Then chop up the removed flesh and mix together in a bowl with chunks of tomato, slices of sweet peppers and zucchini, and with fresh basil and/or oregano leaves. Add salt and pepper to taste, and pour ¼ to ½ cup of olive oil.

Stuff the mixture into the hollowed-out eggplants. Top with a bit more oil, and loosely cover with tinfoil.

Bake at 350 fahrenheit for 45 minutes, or until the mixture and the eggplant remaining in the skin is soft and wet. Serve with bread or rice. 

There are many other ways to cook eggplant. The only trick is that it cannot be thrown into dishes without being prepared in some way, like carrots and peppers and other versatile vegetable mainstays can. But the depth of texture, and the richness that eggplant adds to dishes, makes it worth the extra trouble.