Every week, Caroline Wright creates simple, civilized recipes for Food52 that feed four -- for under $20, in under 20 minutes.
Today: A summery, grill-only riff on an autumnal dish.
During the summer months, fresh vegetable dishes are key in my kitchen; there's just no better way to show off the season’s harvest. While I am known to serve the simplest form of grilled vegetables -- like a platter of thinly sliced grilled eggplant and zucchini in a vinaigrette -- it's sometimes fun to play around with the form.
Here, I made ricotta-stuffed rolled eggplant; it's a meal I usually crave as the temperatures cool down, but when I reduced the cooking time and used fresher ingredients, it was perfectly suited to a summer table. It turned out to be not just a brighter, airier version of an autumnal dish, but something all its own.
Ricotta-Stuffed Grilled Eggplant with Grilled Tomato Sauce
Serves 4
3 plum tomatoes, quartered
1 garlic clove, finely grated
2 rosemary sprigs
1/4 teaspoon pepper flakes
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 medium eggplant (about 1 pound), cut into 1/4-inch slices
One 15-ounce container whole-milk ricotta
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Freshly grated nutmeg
See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.
As a freelance food writer and cook, I first wrote this style of recipe as a column on my blog, The Wright Recipes, as an excuse to cook good food for my friends in a quick and simple way.
Twenty-Dollar, Twenty-Minute™ Meals grew into a cookbook that was published by Workman in May 2013. The recipes found here are original, made especially for Food52 to once again celebrate simple food with friends.
Photo by Caroline Wright
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