Tartine Tuesday (FAIL): Roasted Eggplant, Mascarpone, and Crispy Shallot Tartines

I seem to have a recurring love/hate relationship with eggplant. 

 

(By the way, this is a FAILED Tartine Tuesday recipe... before you all get your hopes up. Sorry!)

When I was young, I despised eggplant. I can't remember if it was the texture or the flavor... maybe it was a combination of both, but no matter how it was cooked, I couldn't stand it. You could have covered it in chocolate and I probably still wouldn't have eaten it... okay, maybe I would have. But eggplant parmesan, a classic, delicious favorite? I wouldn't touch it. 

It wasn't until just this past year or so that I started to really appreciate eggplant. It all started with my friend Elliott's baba ghanoush. Similar in texture to hummus, which I love, I figured I would give it a try to see if my dislike for eggplant was just me being a baby (pun intended). It was light, creamy, and citrus-y, not bitter and gummy like the eggplant that I remembered from my childhood. From that point on, I felt I would give eggplant a second chance, and see where the relationship lead. 

It think eggplant and I are doomed to be like one of those on-again/off-again sitcom relationships.

In my last post, we were on good terms... cut into cubes and roasted, it was delicious. Today though, a completely different story. 

A week ago I went out to dinner with Quentin and his family to celebrate his Dad's birthday. We went to L'atelier du Parc, a modern French restaurant near the Porte de Versailles in Paris. Now, I am usually one to bring my camera everywhere I go, but that night for some reason I forgot to bring a camera. I even purchased a pocket-sized point and shoot a few months ago to make sure that even on those "inappropriate for DSLR" moments, I had a camera. I am still kicking myself in the ass for it.

I won't go into the entire experience in this post... as it would take quite a long time to write it all (the dinner was amazing). I will though, give you a little bite of what lingered in my head since that night. 

Before our meal was served, the waiters brought us an amuse-bouche. In French, amuse-bouche means "mouth-amuser"... literally, one bite, given by the chef, to give you an opening experience of the restaurant and prepare you for your meal. The waiters brought the amuse-bouche of eggplant and mascarpone cheese to us in shot-glass sized tapered glasses topped with a mesclun leaf (sorry there's no picture of it, *kick*). The creaminess of the mascarpone cheese perfectly accented the eggplant, and the thought of trying to re-create the recipe lingered with me the entire week.

I figured it would be fairly simple; roast the eggplant, add mascarpone, top it with something crunchy... crispy fried shallots. It started out great, I roasted the eggplant, pureed it, pushed it through a sieve to make sure there were no lumps, and mixed it with the mascarpone. I sliced the shallots, tossed them in flour, and fried them to a nice brown crisp. Everything looked good, but looks can be oh-so deceiving.

I can only describe it as "bland baby food topped with baby onion rings". Maybe my younger years of eggplant hating karma were coming back to haunt me?! Maybe I didn't roast the eggplant long enough. Definitely too much mascarpone. Not enough salt. Should I have added garlic? Ugh. Luckily I only made enough for 1-2 servings. At least it looked nice, and it was edible.

I refuse to let this failed experiment keep me from writing off eggplant from my grocery lists. I will settle the score. So far: Eggplant-1, Katrina-1. Bring it.

Tartine Tuesday: Mascarpone BLT Tartines

To make my life a little easier, I have decided to implement Tartine Tuesday. The tartine is the epitome of the French open-faced sandwich, usually consisting of a slice of bread topped with a spread or pâté. It is similar to the Italian bruschetta, grilled toasts topped with concoctions of tomatoes, red peppers, olives, herbs, etc... all in all, delicious.

 

So, in honor of this deliciously simple and versatile snack, each Tuesday I will post a new tartine recipe. Doing this helps me in more than one way. First, it lets me spend a little less time on writing a whole story/backdrop for a recipe(gives you more recipes, and me more time to see Paris... he he), and second, it puts an ease on my wallet, since I'll really just be improvising with whatever I already have in my kitchen!

First up to bat:

Mascarpone BLT(Basil, Lardon, Tomato) Tartines

6 slices of baguette, toasted
mascarpone cheese
6 leaves of fresh basil
150g lardons(if you don't have access to lardons, you can always just use bacon that's cut into small strips)
6 sun-dried tomatoes, in oil(I used home-made oven-dried tomatoes, which will be in the next post!)
salt and pepper, to taste

Heat a saute pan on medium to medium-low heat. Add the lardons(or bacon) and slowly render out the fat until they are browned and crispy. Place lardons on a paper towel to soak up any extra grease.

Toast the slices of baguette, and spread mascarpone cheese on each slice. Top with lardons, fresh basil, and sun-dried tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Serves 1-2.