The Provence Eggplant Secret You Need to Try

Now in this video I'm going to be sharing one of the little Provence secrets on how to make very special eggplant aka aubergine that are marinated with the classic condiments plus Provence rosé wine. If you like rosé wine you're going to be able to use the rosé to make that recipe and then drink the rosé when you service this aubergine. Now the rosé really adds something special to it. I can't describe, you're going to have to try it for yourself but it is very unique. The process is very simple. We're going to be cutting the aubergine in little chunks. We're going to make the classic concoction but this time with the vinegar, the olive oil, the condiments and the wine. Cook the aubergine in it and then put this into one big jar. We're going to leave this to cool down. You're going to have this in your fridge at the ready whenever you want to get them and they can keep for a week or more and it's absolutely delicious. On top of that the process is super easy. So let's get started. To make this recipe you don't need many ingredients but there are a few key little things starting here with the wine. The wine you really want to get a French rosé wine. This is something from a Provence, Aix-en-Provence. It's a simple rosé wine and no frill but it really pays off to have that really signature taste from France when you're making that recipe. Some other rosé might be too sweet and not bring the result that is intended. So my advice really get a French rosé. It's not because I'm French, it's because the recipe calls for it. The jar that you've got here, make sure it's heatproof because we're gonna have to pour a boiling liquid into it. So these are jars that are specifically made for pickling, for marinating, for preserving. So they're made to be sustaining a lot of heat. So these two things here are very important. The rest of the ingredients, simple, equal amount of rosé wine, vinegar, double amount of olive oil and then the classic condiment. You've got the garlic, the bay leaf, the thyme, salt and pepper, a bit of honey and then two eggplants aka aubergine worth 500 grams and that's about it. Let's go on the stove. Now before you're going to be preparing the aubergine, the first thing you're going to be doing here is to warm up and prepare the concoction with the wine, the vinegar, the olive oil and the condiment and that is happening on the stove. So make sure you measure everything and we'll go on the stove. Making the concoction is extremely simple. We're going to take all of the liquid and put them in. So we've got plenty of olive oil, we've got plenty of vinegar and we've got of course here the special rosé wine. With that we're going to have the salt and pepper, the condiment, okay so two or three bay leaves, spring of thyme and of course my garlic in here and with that the honey. Sorry about the blurriness a little bit of you here. I'm going to put my heat on high because we're going to bring this to a boil and the last ingredient is of course about a teaspoon of honey for the sweetness. Okay if you want to go in there and now to the boil. All right so the mixture is boiling. I've reduced my heat a little bit. You can give it a little stir to mix everything. Make sure you dissolve the salt in there and then we're going to reduce the heat and leave this to simmer for about 10 minutes while we prepare the aubergine. All right so once the concoction is simmering on the side you can take off the aubergine. Now first thing I need to say about the aubergine, these are not the right type of aubergine. The real ones from Provence are the type like the Lebanese aubergine. It's very thin elongated ones. This is the only one I could find in my shop but I know the size of the original one and we have to cut these in little chunks of four to five centimeters. So it's basically bite-sized kinds of things. Maybe we can start with this smaller one in here. So I try to bite as small as you can if you have these ones and very simple we're just going to remove the end bits. So a little bit on here a little bit on there. I'm going to start by cutting this in half. So this is not easy because it's not straight. Okay the problem with these, look at this, you got a really huge piece. So obviously I think we're gonna have to cut this almost in three and to get the right the right size. So I'm gonna go like that maybe like that and we've got pretty much that kind of size that we want. Okay it's not ideal it's not ideal and the pieces I think it's gonna be something like that. You know we could go even even smaller if you want something like this is a roughly indication of size and that you can work with if you want. But don't do massive chunks because remember this has to be operative style kind of bite size. If there's too much of that flesh in the big you know in the big aubergine you could potentially get rid of some of the seeds in there end up with something a bit smaller even cut it a bit there cut it in half you get the gist and these are the example. Don't go too small that's maybe a bit too small but don't go too big neither. Okay but we're gonna chop everything in small bite-sized pieces let's go. So don't make the aubergine too early as soon as they are done and they're gonna start to get brown. So re-weight the last minute until your concoction is ready and the 10 meters past I'm not gonna plunge this into the concoction straight off. Now you see I love these countryside kind of recipes but sometimes the measurement can be a bit questionable. I hope we're gonna have enough there's not too much here so it's a wide pan. I'm gonna put everything on here I'm gonna stir everything and we're gonna leave this to cook very gently to 15 to 20 minutes. Okay so we're gonna cook this aubergine in that concoction and that's pretty much all what we need to do. Now reduce the heat we want a light simmer you don't want a raging boil because otherwise the aubergine could actually fall apart and from time to time and maybe every five minutes or something I'm gonna try to put things around like that to make sure they all cook evenly. So I'm taking a slotted spoon and as the cooking goes I'm gonna turn them around so I think every five seven minutes you could do every 10 minutes but we'll see how it goes. So there we have it it's been 20 minutes and this is how it looks like. You see everything is nicely stewed or cooked very soft actually but still still quite a little bit firm and immediately we're gonna take this out I'm gonna use a slotted spoon and I've got a big bowl on the side and I'm gonna transfer the aubergine and the liquid into that jar so that we can put this in how a special container. Now for the final step as soon as the aubergines are ready or the eggplants I will transfer them into that little container on here this is a special one remember that is the boiling mixture into there with all the condiments and everything I'm gonna try to go very careful bit by bit and we start by putting in the aubergine. So as you can see my jar is absolutely way too big I thought it was going to be more aubergine but once cooked they really shrink a lot so what I'm going to do finally I'm going to take all the very hot liquid and put all of this in there and then we're going to close first you close it tight and then for more it we need to do one last thing. So what is this last stage where typically you can take that jar turn it upside down and to make sure there's no air coming in but this is typically done when you're making a preserve and you want to keep this for weeks so if you want to go down that path you need to know what you're doing all about sterilizing the pot and making sure everything is airtight leave it with no air so you create a vacuum and then when it's totally sealed you can start to store this on the shelf for several months but I'm not going to tell you to do this at all because you need to know what you're doing there's a lot of safety a precaution to be taken here or what we're doing we're putting this into the jar until here I'm going to leave this on the side here in the kitchen to cool down at room temperature until it's totally it's lukewarm and then transfer that into the fridge and leave it there for 24 hours after 24 hours you can start opening the jar and taking some aubergine and using them in all kinds of situation it will keep happily easily with no problem in that state in your fridge for up to a week I would even say 10 days with no problem you're gonna have the jar ready with your pickle slash marinated aubergine whenever you want so I'll put this first on my bench then in my fridge and when we've passed 24 hours we have a look and we have a taste now 24 hours has finally passed with the next day and you may have noticed that I've transferred the aubergine into a smaller jar because it was taking all my space in the fridge so I just used another jar in there left it outside and in the refrigerator and then it's out it's been out for a bit and to avoid it is gets a bit stiff in there the oil but I just want to give you my live reaction I have not tasted the aubergine yet so I'm going to put some in that little dish on here but first just want to see how they look like so this is after 24 hours you know it's really really quick it's really fragile look at this they all they look very very very good and there's a nice fumes from the herbs the olive oil and anything so let me just grab some so what we're going to do I'm going to do a few tests here first I'm going to put some in there on the side I'm going to try them as is and then maybe a piece of meat and maybe on some bread or some kind of a little sandwich day because you can serve this as a condiment or as a side or just eat them like this if you want not a problem at all all right let's go so test number one the aubergines on their own I don't know if I'm going to take a smaller piece some are bigger than other hmm it's pickled really feels like a pickled because something in 24 hours it's really really soft that's really really good it's interesting you have the you know the acidity from the vinegar you can feel the rose in there I think it's hard to describe what it brings on your savory note and I think the honey the time a little bit as well but all right test number two lamb cutlets just a bit of meat I may try to get some of these on there and maybe some so that could be a side dish I'm putting them on top but actually let's put them on the side maybe I'll take a bit of that drip of oil but I'm gonna add something here you see I think I'm just gonna add a little bit of of that on there and you know I talked it's not gonna hurt okay so what do we have the lamb piece of aubergine so that that got through the the fat the fattiness of the lamb it's a good lamb fattiness of the lamb goes really well okay because the the acidity of the aubergine goes well with the meat I like that last piece for the road and then we'll just put the rose cheers now the last one for the condiment so I'm thinking of the sandwich in the south of France we've got lots of little sandwich so you know a beautiful little a piece of crusty baguette with the other side very very nice I need some mortadella I think there's a bit of put a bit of mozzarella with a bit of old mustard on here and these are the sandwich from the south you get these little things in a little cafe but I just want to try with if we put a few pieces of these marinated aubergine I'll take the small pieces in there because they're nice and pickled on there just a little bit of a this is really the deli sandwich kind of thing and maybe you know take some more of that oil on there a bit of a drizzle you don't want it dry so better and I've got the aubergine and as a condiment I've got a feeling this is going to be pretty good so how do I bite into this I need to cut it but I'm just going to take a big bite and put it back now that I think definitely my favorite that mingles with the flavor and with the bread beautiful so here we are marinated aubergine with the rosé wine served three different ways so which one did I prefer definitely definitely as a condiment I think on its own it was okay very acid you can feel the vinegar with the meat as a side it was kind of nice when you have a fatty meat because it kind of cuts through and add that kind of tanginess to the to the whole mixture but the condiment I think is going to be the most versatile you have the jar in your fridge you put this like this on a sandwich you can put this on the top of a salad or a cold pasta salad or anything like this and it will work absolutely beautifully in all kinds of scenario and I'm going to leave this up to you I would want you to really try that recipe and with the glass of rosé by the way from Aix-en-Provence was also very good but it is definitely worth it absolutely recommend that recipe it is fast 30 minutes and you chop a few there's no peeling no no putting salt on it no prep nothing you cook this boom in a jar you're done as I said you keep this for a week it's beautiful so let me know what you think in the comment section if you make that recipe and next time I'm going to be another recipe this time a potato salad that I find made with wine as well when you're cooking with more wine again to see how things can be done differently in French cooking okay I'll see you next time take care bye