I know it's going to be hard to follow up the
grilled cheese martini post (it became my most popular post of all in the span of like 3 days), but it's time for me to get back to edible (rather than drinkable) sandwiches. This week's sandwich serves as a bit of a cautionary tale as to why one should read the whole recipe before starting to cook. I'm not saying the time invested wasn't worth it in the end, but let's just say I was not prepared for ~1 hour of prep work. But, since there's a lot to cover let's jump right in!
We have two components to the sandwich this week-- a filling and a sauce. For the filling we need 5 Tbsp. olive oil, 1 small onion, 1 large jalapeno pepper, 2 cloves garlic, 1 large eggplant, 1 tsp. sesame oil and 6 ounces feta cheese. For the sauce we need 1 Tbsp. sesame seeds, 1/2 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream), 1/2 tsp. ground cumin (which I happily skipped over-- by now we all know my feelings on cumin), 1/4 cup loosely packed mint leaves, 1/4 tsp. fresh lemon juice and salt and pepper. Of course pita bread was also a necessity.
Phew! Quite the little shopping list we have here! For the most part everything was easy to come by (I didn't find the sesame oil, though). The only slight hiccup came when choosing appropriately sized pita bread. I knew each sandwich would only use half of one pita (filling would go in the pocket), so the smaller "standard" sized pitas seemed too small. Instead I opted for pitas that were about the size of dinner plates. In retrospect this probably wasn't the right choice, but live and learn.
My first task was making the sauce-- if only I had read all the way through the directions I would have known that I could've prepared the sauce a day in advance to save time, but c'est la vie. I started out by toasting the sesame seeds on a low heat for about 5 minutes. I was actually surprised by the noticeable change that took place. They went from bright white to perfectly toasted!
Once they were ready I mixed them into the yogurt along with half of the mint and the cumin and lemon juice (had I chosen to add those ingredients-- I don't like cumin and I didn't have lemon juice).
I popped that into the fridge and was ready to move on to making the filling. This is where things start to get time consuming. Step one was cooking the sliced onions in 2 Tbsp. of olive oil until they are limp, but not brown. "Easy peasy," I thought, "I cook onions all the time."
Welll.. sort of easy... until I turned them partially brown :-/
While those were cooking I was spending some time slicing and dicing my eggplant and jalapeno. And by that I mean my sous chef was doing it. My usual sous chef was out of town, so in a fortuitously good twist of fate my more experienced sibling sous chef was able to step in and show me how to peel an eggplant before dicing it into 1/2" dice for me :-) She did so well with that that I also tasked her with finely chopping the jalapeno (after I removed the stem and seeds). Once I saw how much eggplant we were working with I quickly realized I would be needing a larger pan, so I went ahead and transferred the onions over to an appropriately sized skillet.
Once the onions were cooked it was time to add the jalapenos and the 2 cloves of minced garlic. That all cooks together for about a minute before you add another tablespoon of olive oil, let it warm up for a minute and then reduce the heat to medium low in preparation for the eggplant.
So here I am, moving right along with the recipe, all is well and then I read "Add the eggplant, stir to coat it with oil and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or until eggplant is dark brown and very soft." What?! OK, 30 minutes might not sound like a long time to you, but since I ate lunch at 11:30 AM and it was 8:00 PM when I read that there was to be at least 30 more minutes of cook time, I was not a happy camper. Needless to say, the bag of pita bread was opened shortly thereafter :-P
So yes, I left the eggplant to cook and would come and stir it once every ~5 minutes until I ended up with something like this:
Mmmm it smelled so good! Next the recipe called for the sesame oil, the remaining mint, and salt to taste. I'm not big into adding salt to my food and I've already said I skipped the sesame oil, so all that I added was the rest of the mint.
Now it was time to let the eggplant cool (while covered) for... 15 MINUTES?! Good thing there were
5 4 more pitas in that bag.
Once the filling was (finally) cool to the touch it was time to drain off any excess oil (of which there was none since I didn't add any) and stir in the feta.
Next I cut two of the large pitas in half and
brushed doused each side with some olive oil. I was only making 3 sandwiches so I divided the filling into 3 even portions and stuffed it into the pockets.
This is what convinced me that I had chosen the wrong sized pita bread. There was plenty of room around the edges of the pita that was not occupied by filling. If this had been made with the smaller pitas then they would've been stuffed to the brim (as I imagine they should be).
From here it was same old same old-- cooking each sandwich for 2 minutes on each side (while covered) until the pita is golden brown. At long last they were ready to be served! (with the sesame-yogurt sauce on the side).
Taste Review:
The initial aroma we all smelled was just the toasted olive oil, not any sort of scent from the actual sandwich filling. But, since I've learned that initial scents can be deceiving-- I had to let my taste buds tell the true story. The first bite was very sweet thanks to the cooked onions and the soft eggplant. I love the taste of cooked sweet onions. The feta isn't gooey at all (it's just not the nature of the cheese), but it gives the necessary tang to compliment/offset the sweet filling.
Next it was time to assess the sauce. I think the sandwich stands just fine on its own, but the sauce does provide a nice cool element if that's what you're in the mood for. The sesame seeds in the sauce are very mild-- I could taste them if I really focused on trying to discern that flavor, but wouldn't have necessarily noticed them otherwise. Speaking of mild, the jalapeno had virtually NO spice. I imagine this is because I had removed the stem and seeds, but the sandwich could've used a bit more of a kick (where was Colin and his Sriracha when we needed it)?
The flavor that does take over (if you happen to get a bite of it) is the mint. We were divided on whether or not the mint was good. I wasn't huge on it, but my mom and sister both liked it. I think my main issue with it was that I hadn't chopped up the leaves, so you either got one huge bite or none at all. If it were chopped I could see myself getting on board even though mint isn't a flavor I traditionally associate with Mediterranean dishes.
One miscellaneous note to highlight is how MESSY the pita is. I literally didn't know how to approach eating it because the filling falls out of the pita so easily (since the bread is so thin on either side when you create the pocket). We all had to get forks to finish it up.
FINAL RESULTS:
Sandwich: | Feta and Eggplant on Pita with Sesame-Yogurt Sauce |
Gooey-ness: | 1: not at all gooey, but VERY messy! |
Aroma: | 2 |
Appearance: | Looks like a Mediterranean quesadilla. |
Taste: | B+ |
| Gooey Scale | Aroma Scale |
1 = still cold/hard
| 1 = can’t smell a thing |
2 = slightly melted but still firm
| 2 = tender waft |
3 = melted evenly
| 3 = makes your stomach growl |
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)
| 4 = strong scent |
5 = runny
| 5 = overpoweringly pungent |
6 = sloppy mess!
|
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The feta wasn't the main focus like it should be for a true grilled cheese. This filling could stand on its own as an appetizer and, while it's tasty, I'm not sure I'd say it's a prime example of a grilled cheese (remember, the cheese must stand alone).
Next Week: I don't have my cook book with me as I'm writing this post, so TBD.
