A question about a recipe: Yotam Ottolenghi's Sweet Corn Polenta with Eggplant Sauce

I have a question about step 2 on the recipe "Yotam Ottolenghi's Sweet Corn Polenta with Eggplant Sauce" from Genius Recipes. It says:

"Add the tomato paste to the pan and stir with the eggplant. Cook for 2 minutes, then add the wine and cook for 1 minute. Add the chopped tomatoes, water, salt, sugar and oregano and cook for a further 5 minutes to get a deep-flavored sauce. Set aside; warm it up when needed.
" As soon as I put the dieced eggplant in the frying pan, it absorbed the vegetable oil. It seems like I'm supposed to have a lot of oil left over... Am I doing something wrong?

Katie Shields
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Yotam Ottolenghi's Sweet Corn Polenta with Eggplant Sauce
Recipe question for: Yotam Ottolenghi's Sweet Corn Polenta with Eggplant Sauce

4 Comments

lil'jinx
lil'jinx September 22, 2012
Salting always helps with oil absorptions too, as it does to remove bitterness from eggplant that is not very fresh. If you salt slices or cubes of eggplant in a colander for about an hour (just a sprinkling of whatever salt you use), then blot it dry, it won't soak in as much oil.
 
Kristen M.
Kristen M. August 7, 2012
Every time I've made this, there's been a decent amount of leftover oil -- Ii think one key is having the oil pretty hot when you start and keeping it hot, so it doesn't have as much of a chance to absorb. Most importantly, your medium eggplant may well have been larger than mine! Hope you like the sauce regardless.
 
cookbookchick
cookbookchick August 7, 2012
It's not you -- eggplant absorbs oil like a sponge. Reading the recipe, and from my own experience, I do not see how he could have so much oil left over after frying the eggplant.
 
Katie S.
Katie S. August 7, 2012
Thanks cookbookchick! I think I jumped the gun on the hotline. When there was about 2 minutes left in the fry time, the eggplant started to let go of the oil. In the end, I drained about 2-3 tablespoons.
 
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