Grilled Eggplant with Tomato & Burrata
Photo: Carolina Ayala / Contributor
Eggplant season has arrived in Houston at a time of soaring temperatures. Tiny little green eggplants to add to a curry, long skinny purple ones to oven roast or stuff with anything from cheese, other vegetables to beans. But the best way to cook them is outdoors over a grill when the heat becomes unbearable and warming the kitchen with cooking is undesirable. You could also smoke them over an outdoor grill until the skin becomes black and crackly, then peel the skin off and simply season the inside with salt, olive oil, garlic and tomatoes.
An easier way to cook them is to rub the eggplant with salt and ground cardamom to mellow out the bitter flavors and add an aromatic finish, which is what we are doing in this recipe. The coriander seeds add a lemony finish to the tomatoes. Find the best farm grown eggplants and heirloom tomatoes to start with and you can treat them as minimally as you want with guaranteed good results!