PRESERVED MELANZANE WITH BASIL, OREGANO, GARLIC AND CHILLI

We get a fruit and vegetable box delivered each week which is a great way of eating seasonally and organically (who isn’t spruiking that mantra you say, at least I didn’t mention the word LOCAL as well). The box is especially handy with a young bub that is rapidly working her way through the world of mashed veggies and fruit. We generally use everything in the box but eggplants are in season and we are stockpiling them. I appreciate eggplants in European cooking but don’t generally cook a lot with them in my weekly repertoire so we decided to preserve them and use them in our panini’s and antipasto platters.

The recipe was adapted from Preserving the Italian Waywhich my husband bought me for Valentines Day one year. Romantic? I think so, he knows the way to my heart is through food. 

Oh and yes one of the eggplants does have an unusual growth ha! I couldn’t help but mention that.

They would also make a lovely gift idea, who wouldn’t appreciate a jar full for their fridge?


INGREDIENTS
2 eggplants
3 cloves of garlic peeled but whole
Handful of basil leaves

Handful of oregano leaves

2 birdseye chillies or to taste and depends on your chilli's
Extra virgin olive oil

Salt

You will need some old jars or you could buy some preserving jars if you don’t have a collection rattling around your kitchen.

            


To sterilise the jars:

Preheat the oven to 120˚c. Wash jars thoroughly and rinse well. In a large saucepan cover jars with water and bring to the boil. Cover saucepan, reduce heat and simmer for ten minutes. Using tongs, carefully remove jars and place upside down on a baking tray lined with a tea towel. Put in oven for 15 minutes. Take great care in removing from the oven with oven mitts. Only add hot preserves to a hot jar and cold preserves to a cool jar. Apparently running the jars through a dishwasher also works and sounds a lot easier but I haven’t tried it, this year I was able to cheat and use the baby steriliser.

Cut the eggplants into one centimetre vertical strips and then slice again into strips one centimetre wide.

In a saucepan bring salted water to the boil and then add the eggplant strips and cook for two minutes. Remove eggplant and cool. Start filling the jars alternating with layers of eggplant, salt, chili, oregano, basil and garlic. Finish with salt and fill jar with olive oil. Ensure that the eggplants are lying flat at the top of jar and that none break through the olive oil seal as this will spoil them. Leave for at least a month. Decoration with fancy fabric hats is optional. Enjoy