Mushroom Eggplant Rollups
Italians love eating eggplants, and you will often find thin slices of them roasted, slathered with great Sicilian olive oil and served at room temperature as an accompaniment to your breakfast. It is also not uncommon to find them on your dinner plate as a side garnish. This particular dish evolved from a recent trip around Sicily, that big island at the tip of Italy’s boot. The eggplant is cut into strips, roasted, rolled up, and sprinkled with lightly shaved Sicilian salt from Trapani. I could not resist the temptation to add just a little bit of sautéed Shiitake mushrooms and crushed walnuts, for a Turkish twist. The result is a rather unusual side dish that also works well as an appetizer. Not too filling at all, and delightful in its uniqueness. I encourage use of the best quality olive oil you can find. Sicily and Crete produce some of the best olive oils in the world, but of course there are plenty of other sources. I also recommend shaved finishing salt because it is much lighter than finely ground salts. A pinch of this goes further and will make the dish less salty than an equal pinch of finely ground salt. It is an essential ingredient.
Ingredients
- 2 eggplants large
- 4-6 oz shiitake mushrooms stems removed
- 1 c olive oil extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
- 1 tsp salt shaved finishing
- 1 c walnuts broken
- paprika to dust lightly
- lettuce or endives
Instructions
- Peel about 3 strips of skin from around one side of each eggplant.
- Place each eggplant, peeled side down on a mandolin to slice ¼“ thick full-length slices. See Note 1.
- Place the eggplant slices separately on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. No olive oil should be used at this stage.
- Roast the slices at 350℉ degrees for 35 minutes.
- While the eggplants are roasting, thickly slice the shiitake mushroom caps, stems removed, and sauté in butter or olive oil until well cooked. Raise the heat and singe them slightly at the end to create the maillard reaction, similar to singing meat. This greatly improves their flavor. See Note 2.
- Remove the eggplants from the oven and allow them to cool.
- To assemble, liberally wet each eggplant slice with about 1 tablespoon EVOO and dust liberally with the shaved salt.
- Add only a couple slices of cooked Shitakes and 4 or 5 small broken pieces of walnuts to one end of a slice.
- Roll the slice tightly, then place them back on the parchment paper for reheating before serving.
- Before reheating, wet them again with more EVOO and then add salt to finish.
- Serve plated on a bed of sliced endives or lettuce.
- Dust with paprika for color.
Notes
Notes
1 If you don’t have access to a mandolin, use a fine filet knife. Slices any thinner than ¼" inch and they might burn a bit while roasting. Any thicker and they will make the dish a bit too filling and will take longer to cook. If the slices singe a bit while roasting, that is fine since the coating of EVOO will make them flexible and allow them to be rolled up.
2 Remember, mushrooms are in a different kingdom than plants and are more closely related to animals than vegetables, so singing is a specific chemical process which improves the mushrooms' flavor as it does for meat.
This recipe will work well with other, strongly flavored mushrooms such as Hen of the Woods (I would wet them with soy sauce before preparing) or Morels (more complicated, but a preferred way to do this dish). You could easily experiment with other fillings such as a bit of feta cheese, or a paté of your choosing.
Nutrition facts shown are for each of 8 servings of 2-3 roll-ups.
Nutrition
Calories: 368kcalCarbohydrates: 10gProtein: 4gFat: 37gSaturated Fat: 5gPolyunsaturated Fat: 10gMonounsaturated Fat: 21gSodium: 295mgPotassium: 370mgFiber: 5gSugar: 5gVitamin A: 29IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 25mgIron: 1mg
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