Nightshades Stew

[kirra]

Nightshades Stew

This is a vegan recipe featuring four nightshades: tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplant. It has a Middle Eastern flavor profile (cinnamon with tomatoes and eggplant) crossed with a Sicilian influence (the sweet and sour combo of raisins and vinegar). I make this with potatoes, but you could just as easily leave the potatoes out and serve it over rice or couscous.

I use frozen green beans in this recipe. Usually I try to avoid using frozen foods simply because of the energy it takes to freeze them and keep them frozen, but this dish just isn't any good without them (seriously!) and I only make it once or twice a year.

This is a two-step recipe. You want to get the eggplant baking in the oven while you chop the other vegetables. You can skip the roasting step if you like and just add the chopped eggplant straight into the stew, right after the tomatoes, but the texture will be mushy. You can also leave the eggplant out all together, but then it's just a three-nightshade stew.

Ingredients:

1 medium eggplant, chopped into bite-size pieces (about five cups)
1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, chopped (about 2 to 2 1/2 cups)
2 28-ounce cans of chopped tomato (I like the organic fire-roasted kind from Muir Glen)
The eggplant that you've already baked (see above)
2 cups water
2 cups washed, quartered small red potatoes
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 15-ounce can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (or cider vinegar)
1 teaspoon garlic
1/2 pound frozen green beans

Optional Finishing Flavors:

1 tablespoon peppadew peppers (tiny peppers in brine), diced
OR 1/2 teaspoon harisa or Asian chili pepper paste
OR 2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup crushed, lightly toasted walnuts

Preparation:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut the eggplant into bite-size pieces and toss the pieces with olive oil. Salt and pepper the pieces quite lightly and then spread them out on a baking sheet. Bake them until they are cooked all the way through. Each oven's different, so you'll just have to watch it -- I can't give you a specific time, but you'll know they're done when they don't look all moist and fat anymore. It's fine for the eggplant to have some brown on it. If you like the skin to be a tiny bit charred, that's OK, but don't overdo it because the whole dish will just taste like smoke. Also, I never do that whole salt-the-eggplant-and-let-it-seep routine anymore. I've been told that was more important before eggplants were bred to have fewer seeds and be less bitter, as they are now.


Make Stew:

Pour the olive oil into a stockpot and heat it over a medium-high flame. Add the onion and cook until transparent. Add the chopped tomato, baked (or raw) eggplant, water, potatoes, cinnamon, and salt. Cook until the potatoes are just soft enough to spear with a fork.

Add the chickpeas, raisins, red pepper, balsamic vinegar, and garlic. Add the half-pound of frozen green beans. Cook just until the green beans are cooked through and then take the pot off the flame and serve.

Next add the peppadew peppers, or the pepper paste or harisa, or the lemon juice. Top each serving with some crushed walnuts.

Notes for Meat Eaters:
If you want to throw in a half a pound of ground lamb or lamb stew meat, be my guest. Just sear the stew meat in oil first -- there's no need to dust it with flour. Ground lamb can go directly into the pot. You can sautee it with the onions or you can throw it in right after the tomatoes.)