DDD #81 – Vegan Eggplant Timbale with Rigatoni in Vodka Sauce

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Posted on February 27, 2018

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2018

To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

Click the image above to watch the video.

A long, long time ago, I had a boyfriend. And that boyfriend had – egads! – ex-girlfriends. One of these ex-girlfriends was (and remains) a famous actress. A beautiful, famous actress. She had been reaching out to him to “reconnect.” My boyfriend at the time announced that he would be having dinner with this ex at some point in the future. I informed him that I would be attending this dinner myself. He looked at me like I was crazy. “Nothing’s going on,” he explained. “She just wants to get together. We are friends.” I explained that, as his live-in girlfriend, his friends should be my friends, too, and asked that if everything was so innocent, why couldn’t he just invite her over to our home for dinner.

It took a bit but I won this debate. The invitation was extended & then the pressure was on. ME. On me because I had to cook the damned dinner – a dinner to impress this chick. I wanted to impress her with both my culinary skills & with the level of our domesticity. It was a passive-aggressive counter-attack to what I sensed were not entirely innocent intentions on her part.

This was pre-internet and pre-40 million cooking shows – so I had only my trusty collection of cookbooks to consult for ideas. After hours of deliberating – I ended up making two dishes I had never made before – always very dangerous if making a good impression is your top priority. I made a two-color soup much like this one (this one here is not my creation):

Photo borrowed from HERE.

And I made an eggplant timbale as shown here in this blog. As fate would have it, my dinner was a huge success & the ex-girlfriend was smart & funny & charming & the two of us were quickly gabbing like old friends, nearly cutting my boyfriend from the conversation completely.

And – for the record, ladies (and gents) – this ex-girlfriend never “reached out” to “touch base” again – to either me or my boyfriend. So – my instincts had been correct. She had been perhaps interested in rekindling more than just old times. But – to her credit – once she met me, she was forever respectful and was never again a threat to our domestic bliss.

So – if you ever need to impress someone or scare off some interested interloper from meddling with your love life – serve them this whopper of a dish. It is far easier to make than folks guess and it tastes delicious – and it is classier than a slap fight & hair pulling.

Also – as an aside, I bought this fucking gigantic can (I know canned tomatoes are bad but sometimes you gotta bend rules) of tomato sauce for $2.69. That is practically free! It makes 12 cups of whatever the Hell sauce you are making. I made arrabbiata (surprise, surprise) and I froze 8 cups of it & used 4 cups of it to make the vodka sauce in this recipe.

Vodka Sauce – large quantity

INGREDIENTS

2 28-ounce cans tomato sauce

1 small onion – diced

1/2 cup vodka (optional)

1/4 cup olive oil

5 garlic cloves – chopped

1 TBS crushed red pepper (optional)

1 cup chopped basil

1 cup peas – optional

S&P to taste

For a pink sauce (optional) – 1 cup vegan heavy cream or vegan cream cheese

DIRECTIONS

Heat oil & saute the onion until soft. Add garlic for one minute then add the vodka. Cook on high a minute & then add the other ingredients, bring to a boil then reduce heat to low & simmer for 30 minutes or more. For a pink sauce – add 1 cup vegan heavy cream or vegan cream cheese.

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Vegan Eggplant Timbale with Rigatoni & Vodka Sauce

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE TIMBALE:

1 pound rigatoni (or other pasta) – cooked & drained

8 oz vegan mozzarella

4 large eggplants

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1/8 cup vegan Parmesan

Chopped tomato or chopped fresh parsley or basil – as garnish

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Slice the eggplants into 1/4 inch slices. You can go the long way or the other way – creating round disks. (OPTIONAL – Place in colanders or on paper towels & sprinkle with salt on both sides. Let the eggplants drain for about 30 minutes. This not only helps remove moisture from the eggplant but also minimizes bitterness. I skipped this step.)

You can either rub olive oil into your eggplant before grilling or you can dip them in an Italian salad dressing – really just to lubricate them so they do not stick to the grilling surface & tear apart. Grill (a grill pan works, too) the eggplant until they get nice grill marks on one side, turn them & repeat. Remove & set aside.

Cook the rigatoni according to the box directions. Err on the side of under-cooking – as they will cook more in the oven. Drain the rigatoni & mix in a bowl with cheeses & 2 or more cups of vodka sauce. Add more sauce if you like a really wet pasta. You will have extra vodka sauce that you can use to add as a garnish to the finished slices of timbale or to use in another recipe. It might be nice to have extra sauce for the timbale when you are in the leftovers phase.

ASSEMBLY-

Grease a spring form pan & then put some bread crumbs & vegan Parmesan inside. Swirl the pan to coat all the surfaces. Throw any unstuck bread crumbs/cheese away.

Line the inside of the pan with grilled eggplant. You can either do as I did or, if you have circular disks, fan them on the bottom of the pan & then stick some, overlapping, up on the sides. However you do it – try to cover every part of the pan with eggplant. Pour the pasta & vodka sauce & cheese mix in – layering in extra cheese, if you fancy. Top with any remaining eggplant slices.

Cover the timbale in foil & place some heavy dishes on top & put in the fridge to compress for about 15 minutes.

Then – bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. Let rest, unmolested, for at least 15 minutes and then put a serving dish on top of the timbale, flip the whole thing over & then very carefully – remove the spring form pan.

Garnish with either grated Parmesan or extra vodka sauce.

Spaghetti and Ricotta-Stuffed Roasted Eggplant Polpette (Meatballs) with Spicy Tomato Vodka Sauce

2 Comments

Posted on July 26, 2013

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2013

Follow @celisemccarthy

To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

All my posts now have a VERY customizable PRINT & PDF option. Create a PDF & save the recipe to your computer or print it out. It offers a “remove images” option & you can delete any part of the post you do not need before printing. The button is below by the Twitter & Facebook links.

OK, admittedly, this one has a few steps but none are difficult & this dish is incredibly delicious. In the interest of full disclosure – I must confess where my inspiration for this dish came from. It came from a recipe in the Dallas News – that was accompanied by this picture below:

I thought that was so pretty that I had to try it. Their recipe used frozen meatballs & jarred vodka & pesto sauces. I made the sauce from scratch. They used fancy skewers that had black balls decorating the tops. I used black olives – as they seemed to go very well with my eggplant polpette and I had no fancy skewers handy. They also used angel hair pasta while I used whole wheat spaghetti. In retrospect – angel hair is probably easier to wrap around skewers but I don’t imagine most of you will be attempting this presentation. You should just go for this one:

So – while you need to make the sauce (easy) and the eggplant mash (easy) and the ricotta stuffing (easy) – I am guessing you will find it all worthwhile – especially as this recipe makes about a dozen “meatballs” that were all nearly the size of a pool ball. That would feed 4 easily – maybe even 6 – if you made more than a pound of pasta. I opted to fry my polpette but they can also be baked (for 30 minutes or so at 350 – or until they are brown & just begin to turn crusty) if you are worried about calories (as I should be).

Spaghetti and Ricotta-Stuffed Roasted Eggplant Polpette (Meatballs) with Spicy Tomato Vodka Sauce

INGREDIENTS

For the sauce

1 (28 oz) can of crushed tomatoes (or tomato sauce)

1 TBS olive oil

1 small onion – diced

4 cloves garlic – chopped

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (or to taste)

1/2 cup vodka

1/3 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup chopped parsley

S&P to taste

For the eggplant polpette

2 small eggplants

1 egg

4 cloves garlic – chopped

1/2 cup parsley – chopped

1/3 cup basil – chopped

1 cup grated Parmesan

2 cups (or so) breadcrumbs

Vegetable oil for frying (or bake them at 350 for about 25 minutes)

Filling

1 cup ricotta

1/3 cup grated mozzarella

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1 TBS parsley – chopped

S&P to taste

1 lb whole wheat spaghetti (or other pasta)

If making skewers – you need skewers & a few pitted black olives

Fresh basil and/or parsley – chopped – as garnish

DIRECTIONS

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Halve the eggplants & roast them, cut side down, for about 20-25 minutes or until they soften & begin to wrinkle. Remove from the oven & allow to cool a bit.

For the sauce – heat the olive oil in a stock pot. Cook the onions & crushed red pepper until the onions soften. Add the garlic & saute about a minute.

Add the vodka and cook for a minute or two to cook off the alcohol a bit. Add the canned tomatoes & the parsley.

Simmer for about fifteen minutes. At this point – I used an immersion blender & smoothed the sauce a lot. You can do this, too, or do it in a blender or even leave the sauce with more texture. Stir in the heavy cream & allow to simmer on very low heat.

In a bowl, mix the ingredients for the ricotta filling.

In a food processor or blender, blend everything for the polpette except the eggplant and breadcrumbs. When the other ingredients are chopped finely, scoop out the eggplant flesh & add it to the food processor. Pulse until smooth. Transfer to a bowl & add as much of the breadcrumbs (maybe less – maybe more) as you need to get a consistency that can be made into balls.

To make the stuffed polpette, put the bowls of eggplant & stuffing near each other by the sink. Wet your hands and scoop out some eggplant

Create a little nest indentation & add some filling. Top with more eggplant & create a little “meatball.”

Mine started like golf balls but ended up more like pool balls. Do this until the eggplant is gone. I ended up with extra filling left over. You may or may not – depending on how much you fill your polpette. Try to patch any spots you see with filler peeking out with more eggplant. If the filling seeps out while you fry them – they just get a little harder to manage in the oil & you risk them sticking to the pan or falling apart.

Bake them at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until golden & beginning to crisp. OR – heat about 1/2 inch of oil & shallow fry them until they are golden brown or darker – all over. Scoop out with a slotted spoon & drain on a paper towel. If you like, you can put them in a warm (200 degrees) oven to keep them hot.

Cook the pasta according to directions.

You can warm the polpette more by dropping them into the hot vodka sauce a few minutes before serving.

Serve pasta topped with sauce & a few polpette & garnish with chopped fresh basil and/or parsley.

Or – if you are feeling ambitious, wrap a few strands of pasta around a few skewers & stand the skewer up in a “meatball.” Place that skewered meatball on a little pool of sauce. Cap your spaghetti & skewer tip with pitted black olives & garnish with basil & parsley. Brag at the water cooler tomorrow!

“Back off, Bitch” Rigatoni & Vodka Sauce Eggplant Timbale with Basil Oil

5 Comments

Posted on January 7, 2013

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2013

Follow @celisemccarthy

To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

A long, long time ago, I had a boyfriend – a different boyfriend than my current beau, the charming Miles Miller. And that boyfriend had – egads! – ex-girlfriends. One of these ex-girlfriends was (and remains) a famous actress. A beautiful, famous actress. She had been reaching out to him to “reconnect.” My boyfriend at the time announced that he would be having dinner with this ex at some point in the future. I informed him that I would be attending this dinner myself. He looked at me like I was crazy. “Nothing’s going on,” he explained. “She just wants to get together. We are friends.” I explained that, as his live-in girlfriend, his friends should be my friends, too, and asked that if everything was so innocent, why couldn’t he just invite her over to our home for dinner.

Photo borrowed from HERE.

As a side note – I didn’t really manage to get a photo of my effort last night that captured how impressive & elegant this dish can be. I really underachieved on that front this time. HERE are the Google images of other versions of this dish. Some people cut the purple off their eggplant and some simply bake the eggplant into pliant submission. In these cases – the result is a more uniform, monochromatic exterior that I feel is far less appealing. They end up looking oddly slimy or, worse yet, fleshy. So – I recommend the grilled version not only for the flavor that imparts but also for the visual.

I originally intended to add peas to this dish – also for the visual – but decided on a vibrant green basil oil, instead. But if you like peas – just add a cup when you mix the filling. The basil oil is a nice touch but TOTALLY optional. Also – if you want a lighter dish – just use straight arrabbiata – rather than vodka sauce. T o achieve this – simply omit the heavy cream from the recipe below. I used mozzarella & goat cheese in this. You might want to use feta or cheddar or smoked mozzarella, instead. Smoked mozzarella with arrabbiata in this dish work really well. Experiment. Use your imagination. You can’t really mess this up.

Here is the recipe using the entire 6+ pound can shown above.

PRINT THIS LARGE QUANTITY SAUCE RECIPE ONLY

Arrabbiata Sauce – large quantity

INGREDIENTS

12 cups tomato sauce

1 cup olive oil

10 garlic cloves – chopped

2 TBS crushed red pepper

1 cup chopped parsley

1 cup chopped basil

1 TBS pepper

1 TBS sugar

1 tsp salt

1 TBS oregano

DIRECTIONS

Heat oil & saute garlic, crushed red pepper & oregano for a minute or two. Add the tomato sauce – being careful not to get burned by the sputtering oil. Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil then reduce heat to low & simmer for 30 minutes or more.

PRINT THIS LARGE QUANTITY SAUCE RECIPE ONLY

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PRINT THIS TIMBALE RECIPE

“Back off, Bitch” Rigatoni & Vodka Sauce Eggplant Timbale with Basil Oil

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE VODKA SAUCE:

1/3 cup olive oil

3 garlic cloves – chopped

2 tsp crushed red pepper

1/2 cup parsley – chopped

1/2 cup basil – chopped

4 cups tomato sauce

1 pint heavy cream

1/2 cup vodka (optional)

1 tsp pepper 1 tsp sugar

1 tsp oregano

salt to taste

FOR THE BASIL OIL:

1 packed cup of fresh basil

3/4 cup high quality olive oil

FOR THE TIMBALE:

1 pound rigatoni

1/2 pound fresh mozzarella – diced

3 oz goat cheese

3 large eggplants

bread crumbs

Chopped tomato or chopped fresh parsley or basil – as garnish

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

BASIL OIL –

Blanch the basil in boiling water for 10-20 seconds than plunge into ice water. Squeeze out the water & puree in a food processor with olive oil & salt to taste. Go light on the salt. Set aside.

VODKA SAUCE –

Heat oil & saute garlic, crushed red pepper & oregano for a minute or two. Add the vodka & cook for a minute or so being careful not to get burned by the sputtering oil – then add the tomato sauce & heavy cream. Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil then reduce heat to low & simmer for 30 minutes or more until sauce thickens a bit.

FOR THE TIMBALE –

Slice the eggplants into 1/4 inch slices. You can go the long way or the other way – creating round disks. Place in colanders or on paper towels & sprinkle with salt on both sides. Let the eggplants drain for about 30 minutes. This not only helps remove moisture from the eggplant but also minimizes bitterness.

Cook the rigatoni according to the box directions. Err on the side of under-cooking – as they will cook more in the oven. Drain the rigatoni & mix in a bowl with cheeses (you can substitute smoked mozzarella or Parmesan or cheddar cheeses – if you prefer) & 2 cups of vodka sauce. Add more sauce if you like a really wet pasta. You will have extra vodka sauce that you can use to add as a garnish to the finished slices of timbale or to use in another recipe. It might be nice to have extra sauce for the timbale when you are in the leftovers phase.

ASSEMBLY-

Grease a spring form pan & then put some bread crumbs inside. Swirl the pan to coat all the surfaces with bread crumbs. Throw any unstuck bread crumbs away.

Line the inside of the pan with grilled eggplant. You can either do as I did here or, if you have circular disks, fan them on the bottom of the pan & then stick some, overlapping, up on the sides. However you do it – try to cover every part of the pan with eggplant. Pour the pasta & vodka sauce & cheese mix in. Top with any remaining eggplant slices.

Cover the timbale in foil & place some heavy dishes on top & put in the fridge to compress for about 30 minutes.

Then – remove the foil & bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Let rest, unmolested, for at least ten minutes and then put a serving dish on top of the timbale, flip the whole thing over & then very carefully – remove the spring form pan.

Place slices on plates & drizzle with basil oil (if using). Garnish with either chopped tomatoes or chopped basil or parsley.

PRINT THIS TIMBALE RECIPE

Penne with Spicy Garlic Shrimp, Vodka Sauce and Arugula

Hangover Cure #4 – Spicy Bloody Mary

8 Comments

Posted on July 28, 2012

Is there something satirical or, you know, wrong about posting a hangover cure that involves alcohol in an Amy Winehouse pint glass? I’m too hung over to figure that out. I would like to say this, though, to you amateurs out there: yes – I understand that it seems counter intuitive to drink more of the demon that got you feeling so bad as the cure for feeling so bad but you gotta trust. Maybe beer isn’t your thing. Maybe Bloody Marys disgust you. Then try a Bellini or something. I don’t care. But hair of the dog is the shortest way to recovery. Well – maybe recovery is the wrong word to use because drinking in the morning is a slippery slope – I acknowledge that – and it might lead to a need for recovery of an entirely more permanent & far less pleasant variety – sobriety. So – let’s just say – alcohol can mend what alcohol threw asunder – much like Ritalin (a form of speed) can cure hyperactivity. Just try not to get into a pattern with it. After all – a professional drinker understands pacing & training & developing tolerance. You can’t just go out once a month & do Jager shots & expect to hang with the big boys. Just like a good chef cleans as she goes, a good drinker knows their limits and never – I mean never – gets sloppy. But – hangovers get the best of us, sometimes. And I am here to hook you up.

OK – so – I am not a tomato juice person. It is thick & gross & always seems warm. Blech. And – I would like to point out – never did I sample a glass of tomato juice & respond by saying, “You know what’s wrong with this juice? It doesn’t taste fishy enough.” What could be worse than a thick, warm mouthful of tomato juice slugging its way down your throat like a kidnapper’s gag? A thick, warm mouthful of CLAM-infused tomato juice, that’s what.

Or, at least, that’s what you’d think. While I have found that vodka & numerous spicy additions are the only things that can salvage a glass of tomato juice and render it even remotely tempting – I need to confess that Clamato (to make a Caesar – http://cocktails.about.com/od/vodkadrinkrecipes/r/bloody_caesar.htm) makes a superior Bloody Mary – far better than just that random, plain, canned gagger stuff. Better yet, though, are the many pre-mixed spicy blends out there. I cannot make a decent Bloody Mary from plain tomato juice. I just cannot. I need to start with a decent Bloody Mary mix – like Mr. & Mrs. T’s – http://www.webstaurantstore.com/mr-mrs-t-32-oz-bold-spicy-bloody-mary-mix-12-cs/115BMARYRS.html. Starting with one of these mixes – and not one of the really thick ones – I add the following:

PRINT THIS RECIPE

LOTS of ice

Vodka – no need for an expensive one – since so much crap is gonna be added

Horseradish

Sriracha – http://everydayfoodblog.marthastewart.com/2011/01/reader-sriracha-ideas.html

Hot sauce – I like Crystal – http://www.thekitchn.com/better-than-tabasco-louisianas-151272

Olives – the standard Spanish olives with pimento

Celery – with the leafy top

Dill pickles – for rim garnish (if you have’m. They are not critical)

Lime juice (fresh only!)

Pepper

I am pretty heavy handed with the horseradish & the lime. You can mix these ingredients in any ratio you prefer. Master chef tip? If you go heavy with the vodka on the first one – the second one tastes AMAZING!