This is a very common dish, not only in Romania and Hungary but in the whole Europe. It's a very easy and delicious salad that makes you addicted in a split second. Just like the goulash, eggplant salad has endless varieties and everyone is says theirs is the original, authentic, genuine recipe. I'm not saying any of these, this recipe is what I love and that's all.
Today I'm going to share my eggplant salad with mayonnaise. Warning!!! It's not healthy as it's made with (homemade) mayo but it's heavenly good! :)
Ingredients:
Ingredients for the mayo:
Today I've used grilled eggplant from the freezer but you can use fresh eggplant and grill it.
Good eggplants are hard to grow. We have plenty of space in the garden and trying each year to grow some but they are never as good as the ones we can buy from farmers who are growing eggplants in the south area of the country. Eggplant needs clayey-sandy soils with high humus content and ours is nothing like that. We get eggplant every year but these are small and not as tasty as the ones you can buy from the farmers market.
Maybe the photo above is not the best example as there should not be fire there only charcoal barely burning (this was an accident) but unfortunately don't have a better photo now.
So wash the eggplants and grill them outside on charcoal.
The other method is on a stove, at the open fire if you don't have any other possibility but first make sure you don't have smoke alarm in the house as that will go off immediately.
The third method is in the oven. This is not my favorite as the eggplant should have a slight smoked flavor and in the oven you can't get that. But if you have am electric stove or/and smoke alarm, you have no other choice.
Grilled outside is the best, you can have them ready in like 20 minutes, after which you can place them on a tray, let them cool a little and peal them. Make sure the excess water drains out as it's not needed.
If you have room in the refrigerator, bag some and freeze it for winter. If not, you can make a wonderful salad and I'm going to show you how.
First you need the mayo. You can use mayo from the grocery store or you can use a fresh, homemade one. I'm always making my own mayo as don't like the one from the store, full of who knows what.
You need a room temperature egg yolk (make sure to be fresh), one tbsp mustard, 30 - 40 ml olive oil, juice of 1/2 lemon.
Add the egg yolk and the mustard and start mixing together, then slowly, little by little add the olive oil. Make sure it's room temperature and don't add too much at once.
You can have the best mayo in less than one minute.
Add the lemon juice and voilà!
Cut the onion in four, add to a blender and chop it. The mix the mayo, onion and eggplant well, season with salt and pepper, lemon juice if needed.
If you don't have a food mixer, you can chop the eggplant manually, just make sure to use either a wooden knife or something plastic as they say the eggplant tend to oxidize when in contact with metal. I'm not sure it's true but better safe than sorry.
Serve with fresh tomatoes and/or red bell pepper.
If you don't like onions, you can use garlic instead.
If you don't want to use mayo or want a vegan eggplant salad, you make a fake mayo using just mustard and oil. I did one for a vegan contest and was heavenly good.
