Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

1. The Traditional Romanian Way
   1. Very Detailed Instructions
2. The American Way

The Traditional Romanian Way

In Romania, one of the most traditional foods you can find around is the eggplant salad and it’s made mostly in the summer/fall, when the eggplants are in season.

How to make the salad in one sentence: roast ‘em, peel ‘em, drain ’em, chop ‘em, add chopped onion, oil, salt.

It’s best served cold, with fresh bread and tomatoes. I cannot recommend a serving size. It just doesn’t apply.

Very Detailed Instructions

Cooking the eggplant, ordered from the worst way to the best:

1. Oven – heat around 400-425 F, on a tray, poke with a fork, roast until soft to the touch
2. On the stove, on open flame – very messy, charred skin and juices all over, unless you have a metal sheet – poke, roast until soft to the touch
3. Grill (my favorite way) – First great eggplant salad debacle: grill on high with lid open (my way) or medium with lid closed?
   • Either way, same steps, poke, turn on each side, when soft is done
4. Wooden fire on a cast iron stove (heavenly way, had it only twice in my life, but I will never forget the taste) – the skin will be charred, but the taste, oh the taste … poke, turn on each side, when soft is done

Note(s):

• why poke with a fork?
  • Other way it explodes and makes a mess (trust me, I know)
• how do you test “soft to the touch”?
  • with your bare finger, and yes, it will burn you

Now that the eggplants are cooked, the time is here for the Second great eggplant salad debacle: take out the skin while they are still hot or wait until they cool down? I personally do it while they are still hot, my mother told me that the eggplant will be whiter, if you wait for them to cool down the skin will blacken the eggplant. Just be careful, you will burn your fingers (again). ML’s Tip: peel under slow running water.

OK, hot or cold, now that the skin is removed, it’s time to put the eggplants in a strainer for at least 30 minutes to let the juices flow away – they are bitter to the taste (or so they say, never tasted them).

In the meantime, chop a medium to small sized onion (my way) or mash some garlic cloves (others’ way). Not of such importance as to become another eggplant salad debacle, only a matter of taste. You can use both onion and garlic, and if you are in an adventurous mode you can add some zucchini to get a lighter salad. I don’t do that, I try to stay close to the classics.

Chop the eggplants on a wood board with a special wooden cleaver made especially for veggies (all Romanians have one) or with a regular stainless-steel knife (everybody has one). Do not use ordinary metal knives as those are oxidizing the vegetables.

I don’t chop the eggplant in a food processor. I just don’t, I want to “feel” the eggplant. Some people use the food processor. My opinion regarding the food processor: puah!

Well, well, well, here we are, at the final steps, the dressing of the salad, which brings us to the Third great eggplant salad debacle, a debacle so important that couples have divorced, mothers-in-law never spoke again with their daughters-in-law, and friendships have broken: OIL or MAYO (I had them both and I like them both; my son likes it with oil, my wife, with mayonnaise).

However you choose to make it, do not use olive oil, especially the very healthy extra virgin olive oil, it overpowers the eggplant taste. The very traditional sunflower oil is great.

Homemade mayonnaise is the best, but who has time now? Any store mayo you like is good. We even tried a plant-based mayo once and it didn’t ruin the taste too much, but we’ll stay to the one with eggs.

The American Way

I was advised by a good friend to also add “The American Way”, the quick and easy way. Without minimizing anybody’s skills, it is just a way of making it with whatever I’m sure you have in your kitchen, an oven and a food processor. And because it is indeed a very good veggie spread, why not make it?

Ingredients	Instructions
* 4 large eggplants * 1 medium onion, any color (yellow, red, white) * and/or 2-3 garlic cloves * sunflower oil (or Mayo, 2 dollops or so) * salt	* preheat the oven to 400 F * poke the eggplants and roast them until soft to the touch * when done, peel off the skin and drain for 30 minutes * put in the food processor together with the onion and/or garlic * add oil and/or mayo and salt

Time from start to finish

• Around 2 hours