{"id":1429,"date":"2018-09-08T09:52:42","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T09:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/premesso.com\/?p=1429"},"modified":"2018-09-08T09:52:42","modified_gmt":"2018-09-08T09:52:42","slug":"mm-enterprise-cooking-vol-vii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/?p=1429","title":{"rendered":"M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. VII"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peperonata all’Afghana – September 7<\/p>\n

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Peperonata all’afghan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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al forno<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By dint of kindness and good luck, I obtained three bags of fresh veg lately — eggplants, fresh tomatoes (thankfully, since the ones flown into here are a crime), okra, peppers, onions, and cucumbers. So what to do other than to make one of the delicious Mediterranean eggplant and pepper dishes — in France it’s ratatouille, in the Balkans it’s pindjur <\/em>or ajvar<\/em>, and in Italy, it’s peperonata<\/em> or parmigiana. Having already covered the latter, I thought I’d do the former.<\/p>\n

I thought the peppers were sweet, and even tasted one, but some hot ones got in my batch, so mainly I was worried that it’d be too hot. Hot it was, but not inedible. I didn’t really have enough time to do a fully 80-90 minute bake, so I cooked on the stove and in the oven.<\/p>\n

As with all eggplant dishes, I sliced and salted first. I had the makings of a Northern-style soffritto in my fridge from the salad bar (diced celery, carrots and onion). Not normally to be used in a Southern dish, but waste not want not. I tossed that in, along with a garlic clove, then the salted and washed eggplant slices, and let it cook down. Since eggplants are a sponge that will take as much EVOO as you have, I had to add a little more oil to prevent sticking. After that mix got soft, I added a can of these excellent Victoria cherry tomatoes (I’m saving the fresh ones for salad or seafood dishes). Then I added the chopped peppers, long green crooked ones, and (since I thought they were sweet) a dash of red dried peperoncino<\/em> and some oregano. I let the mix cook down over fairly high heat as I boiled water for the gomiti<\/em> and penne (figuring I’d uphold the cucina povera<\/em> Neapolitan tradition of mixing leftover types of pasta). I’d pre-heated the oven, so I tossed the peperonata<\/em> in with a liberal amount of grana padano<\/em> (again, I’d rather use pecorino but I’m hoarding it for later — this is war zone cooking, c’mon).<\/p>\n

When the pasta was al dente, I removed it from the oven and tossed everything, along with a spoonful of the starchy reserved water.<\/p>\n

It was decent enough to where I finished the whole thing. I think it would have been better the next day, maybe. I also might’ve liked the blend the ingredients together for a smoother consistency. I definitely would have used less hot peppers (and I like hot). Not bad, but seemed to be missing something. Maybe the Northern soffritto<\/em> was a mistake. At any rate, it was nice to have fresh vegetables.<\/p>\n

Today: some manner of shrimp and eggplant dish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peperonata all’Afghana – September 7 By dint of kindness and good luck, I obtained three bags of fresh veg lately — eggplants, fresh tomatoes (thankfully, since the ones flown into here are a crime), okra, peppers, onions, and cucumbers. So what to do other than to make one of the delicious Mediterranean eggplant and pepper … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. VII”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[471,396],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1432,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions\/1432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}