Hal­cian Pierre

"What a pound for the me­l­on­gene?" is ques­tion you would ask in the mar­ket. "What's the price of the egg­plant?" will be the ques­tion that will come from the su­per­mar­kets. Ask "How de baigan sell­ing?" if you're in the coun­try. But you will nev­er hear, "Pray tell, what is the cost of the aubergine?" be­ing asked in sweet Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The most com­mon cause of this prob­lem is leav­ing the bread to rise for too long. This is eas­i­ly done if you are un­able to con­trol the tem­per­a­ture of the en­vi­ron­ment where the bread is ris­ing. It is al­so tempt­ing to let the dough rise that lit­tle ex­tra bit in an ef­fort to make lighter bread. The prob­lem, how­ev­er, is that the dough be­comes over stretched and falls to pieces.

Af­ter all, we've known it by the me­l­on­gene moniker for years, but its of­fi­cial name is the egg­plant which is used in the Unit­ed States, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, and Cana­da. That name de­rived from the fruits of some 18th-cen­tu­ry Eu­ro­pean va­ri­eties which were yel­low or white and re­sem­bled eggs. (In­ci­den­tal­ly, aubergine is al­so the name of the pur­ple colour re­sem­bling that of the fruit, but I di­gress...)

My ex­pe­ri­ences with me­l­on­gene have been few, on­ly be­cause I am al­ler­gic to it. Still, I do ap­pre­ci­ate it be­cause of its di­verse treat­ments in dish­es. Peo­ple have en­joyed it roast­ed, grilled, baked, steamed, bat­tered and deep fried and stewed (in a rata­touille). Be­fore dis­cov­er­ing my al­ler­gy I used to es­pe­cial­ly en­joy baiga­nee, a deep fried slice of me­l­on­gene coat­ed on ei­ther side with a split pea bat­ter and fried un­til crisp. When it was brought out of the hot oil, the sliced edge of the me­l­on­gene looked like a shiny lit­tle belt hold­ing the bat­ter to­geth­er... and the taste was pure heav­en!

So, it you're search­ing for me­l­on­gene in the mar­ket, al­ways know that re­gard­less of its size, shape or colour it should be firm and shiny. Shine tells you how old it was when it was picked: the duller the skin, the old­er the fruit, the more spongy its tex­ture and the more de­vel­oped its seeds. Pick it up and feel the weight... it should feel heavy for its size. Firm­ness tells you how old it has grown since pick­ing day. Al­so, Press it with your thumb; it should in­dent and then spring back im­me­di­ate­ly – that's how you know it's ripe. If you press it and it stays in­dent­ed, it's over ripe; the longer it sits around, the flab­bier it gets. Al­ways choose the firm, shiny ones for your dish­es.

Speak­ing of which, to­day's me­l­on­gene dish­es get the Eye Food seal of ap­proval; here are recipes for Egg­plant Parme­san and the Trin­ba­go clas­sic, Baigan Cho­ka. Have fun cook­ing!

Egg­plant Parme­san

(Yield: Serves 8)

In­gre­di­ents:

2 lbs (about 2 large) egg­plants

Salt

1 28-oz can whole peeled toma­toes

1 clove gar­lic, peeled and minced

Olive oil

Fresh­ly ground black pep­per

1/2 cup all-pur­pose flour

1/2 cup fine dry bread­crumbs

4 large eggs, beat­en

1 1/2 lbs of fresh moz­zarel­la cheese, sliced in­to 1/4 inch rounds

1 cup grat­ed high qual­i­ty Parme­san cheese

1 packed cup fresh basil leaves

Method

• Cut egg­plants length­wise in­to 1/4 inch slices. Arrange one lay­er in the bot­tom of a large colan­der and sprin­kle even­ly with salt. Re­peat with re­main­ing egg­plant, salt­ing, un­til all egg­plant is in the colan­der. Weigh down the slices with a cou­ple of plates and let drain for 2 hours. The pur­pose of this step is to have the egg­plant re­lease some of its mois­ture be­fore cook­ing.

• While the egg­plant is drain­ing, pre­pare toma­to sauce. Com­bine toma­toes, gar­lic and 1/3 cup olive oil in a food proces­sor. Sea­son with salt and pep­per to taste and set aside.

• When egg­plant has drained, press down on it to re­move ex­cess wa­ter, wipe off the ex­cess salt, and lay the slices out on pa­per tow­els to re­move all the mois­ture.

• In a wide, shal­low bowl, com­bine flour and bread­crumbs. Mix well.

• Pour beat­en eggs in­to an­oth­er wide shal­low bowl. Place a large, deep skil­let over medi­um heat, and pour in a half inch of olive oil. When oil is shim­mer­ing, dredge the egg­plant slices first in the flour mix­ture, then in the beat­en egg. Work­ing in batch­es, slide coat­ed egg­plant in­to hot oil and fry un­til gold­en brown on both sides, turn­ing once. Drain on pa­per tow­els.

• Pre­heat the oven to 350°F. In the bot­tom of a 10x15 inch glass bak­ing dish, spread 1 cup of toma­to sauce. Top with one third of the egg­plant slices. Top egg­plant with half of the moz­zarel­la slices. Sprin­kle with one third of the Parme­san and half of the basil leaves.

• Make a sec­ond lay­er of egg­plant slices, topped by 1 cup of sauce, re­main­ing moz­zarel­la, half the re­main­ing Parme­san, and all of the re­main­ing basil.

• Add re­main­ing egg­plant, and top with the re­main­ing toma­to sauce and Parme­san.

• Bake un­til cheese has melt­ed and the top is slight­ly brown, about 30 min­utes. Al­low to rest at room tem­per­a­ture for about 10 min­utes be­fore serv­ing.

Baigan Cho­ka

(Yield: Serves 8)

In­gre­di­ents:

1 large firm me­l­on­gene

2 to 3 cloves gar­lic, peeled and each clove cut in four length­ways

Cook­ing oil

1 small yel­low hot pep­per (re­move the seeds and mince fine­ly)

1 small onion, chopped fine­ly

1 toma­to, seed­ed and chopped (op­tion­al)

Salt to taste

Method

• Take the clean me­l­on­gene and make some slits in it with a knife.

• In­sert the sliv­ers of gar­lic in­to the slits as deeply as pos­si­ble.

• Put a lit­tle cook­ing oil in your hands and rub the me­l­on­gene with it, coat­ing the skin well – it mustn't drip oil when you pick it up.

• Us­ing a fork or a knife with a long blade, place it gen­tly on an open flame on your stove. Turn it oc­ca­sion­al­ly so it roasts even­ly on all sides. The en­tire me­l­on­gene should be nice­ly soft and cooked with charred skin.

• Place the cooked me­l­on­gene gen­tly on a plate and cut it in half. Us­ing a cou­ple of spoons, re­move the flesh away from the charred skin and trans­fer it in­to an­oth­er bowl.

• Add in the chopped toma­to (op­tion­al).

• Add in the onion and hot minced pep­per and mash with a fork to blend every­thing.

• Add salt to taste.

En­joy with some sa­da roti or Crix.