Eggplant Avalanche

I think that I have mentioned that I have never had any luck growing eggplant before. Well, that worm has turned. This year we have had oodles of the fruits. The white variety, which reminds me of ostrich eggs, have probably been the most prolific, but the purple ones are coming on strong, and I have harvested a few Chinese eggplant too.

So far we have had them in salads, pastas, a tart, and an Indian stew, but several nights ago I decided to make some eggplant sandwiches for dinner. I sliced the eggplant thick, sprinkled the slices with salt, and let them sweat for fifteen minutes or so while heating my little convection oven up to 400 degrees. After blotting the eggplant slices with a paper towel to absorb the bitter juice that they gave up, I brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper before popping them in the oven, where I baked them about 12 minutes or so on each side, until they were brown and soft. I brushed the eggplant slices again with a balsamic vinaigrette after they came out of the oven. While they were cooling a bit, I toasted the bread and sliced some tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. To assemble the sandwich, I stacked the eggplant, some arugula leaves, the mozzarella, the tomatoes (which I sprinkled with salt and pepper), and a few basil leaves on the bottom slice of toasted bread. I spread the top slice of bread with some lemon mayonnaise and added it to the sandwich.

We both pronounced it delicious, but I found myself wondering what it would have been like with some prosciutto...