Eggplant Towers - Southport Friends

This one is for vegetarians who have lots of time to spend in the kitchen.

Egg-Plant (Aubergine) Towers

During our last holiday one of the places that we ate in advertised that they had at least one vegetarian dish at every meal, often it was pasta with tomato sauce but they changed the shape of the pasta each time. One day they advertised Mozzarella Towers so that is what we ordered, turned out to be fried eggplant slices glued together with mozzarella and roasted in an oven. Ours had an unusual taste and I ask the waiter what the eggplant had been fried in, he came back and said it was bacon fat to give it a bit of taste. Anyway that was one meal that we could not eat but it gave me an idea for the future, this is the recipe that has evolved after about four attempts; it does require quite a bit of work but is well worth the effort and can be frozen for future use: -

3 Eggplants (about 600 Gms each)
Flour for coating (any kind will do)
400 Gms of raw potatoes
200 Gms of cheese (I used Cheddar Tasty)
500 Gms of large mushrooms
100 Gms of olives
2 Tablespoons of parmesan cheese
3 Tablespoons of milk
3 Tablespoons breadcrumbs preferably Japanese Panko but ordinary ones will do.

Peel the eggplants and cut into slices two centimetres thick. Rub cooking salt into both sides and leave to stand for thirty minutes. This process takes any bitterness away from the eggplant. Wash the salt off the eggplant slices under cold water, shake of any surplus water then dab into flour to retain a fine coating. The eggplants should now be fried on both sides, use very little oil, just enough to stop them sticking, too much oil will make them greasy and soft. I used a large electric non-stick fry pan set to 200C and turned them every four minutes until the slices were still firm but cooked and had turned light brown, took about 16 minutes to cook each batch. Place to one side and allow cooling. There are alternative ways to cook the eggplant, one is in an oven set to 150C turning every 10 or 15 minutes, the other is in a sandwich maker, the flat type rather than the waffle ones.

The raw potatoes should be cooked in their jackets; I did this in a microwave oven for about ten minutes turning once. When cooked slice lengthways into two and leave to cool. When cooled scrape out the potato and mash with a fork.

Grate the cheese

Peel the mushrooms and slice into small pieces, more or less diced. They should then be fried on a medium heat with very little oil until just soft and the juices have appeared.

Chop the olives into small pieces.

Mix all the ingredients except the milk and breadcrumbs together. I added about two tablespoons of sour cream at this stage because it was left over from something else but a bit of milk will help to bind the mixture.

Sort the cooked eggplant slices by size. Lay out the three largest slices and spread some of the mixture over them. Place the next three largest slices of eggplant on top and continue the process until all the mixture and the eggplant have been used up. There were actually two small slices of eggplant left over, these should be warmed and eaten by the cook right away.

The eggplant towers should all be about the same size and shape. Cover lightly with milk using a pastry brush then sprinkle with breadcrumbs, this is to add a bit of extra crispness when roasted.

Place the three towers on a metal tray and cook at 180C for 30 minutes turning as necessary in your oven to produce even browning. They can be eaten right away or frozen and later heated in a microwave.

Mature eggplants contain a lot of protein and one of these towers has the RDI for one adult. All that is needed to make a very satisfying meal are a few steamed vegetables. I also served small potato balls that had been browned in the oven; they were about the size of marbles. When my wife saw the dish she said “oh, we’re having cowpats and wallaby droppings”, yes that is what they did look like and that is probably the name that this dish will have in our house in future,

In an earlier attempt I did add some chopped onions but this tended to overpower the subtle taste of the eggplant. You could add a few slices of tomato but for anyone watching food combinations this is a no no, it would add lots of calories to you. In a future version I might try cooking the finished product in an open dish rather than as towers, it can then be cut into smaller portions, we did find this version a bit filling and it did not leave much room for the chocolate sponge and soy ice-cream.