Gingerbread Waffles, and a really neat book

This is one of my favorite cookbooks and I was astonished when I realized that I had not put any of its recipes into my blog:  Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine, by Norma Jean and Carole Darden, published in 1978 and then 1994. 

ISBN 0-385-47270-6

Why is this my favorite?  Because of the family stories that are connected to the recipes, because the family itself is inspiring and accomplished, and because of the obvious love the authors have for their family.

For example, when describing their grandfather, they wrote (pages 4 - 6):

Family legend has it that in 1868, at the age of fourteen, Charles Henry Darden walked into Wilson, North Carolina.  He had no money, no relatives, no friends there, and no one knew where he had come from -- he wouldn't say.  Somehow, somewhere in his mysterious fourteen years, he had gained considerable skill as a blacksmith and could make and repair wheels.  These abilities allowed him to eke out a small living and to put together the long wooden toolbox that was to become his trademark as he traveled door to door repairing broken locks and sharpening knives.  In a short time he established a good reputation and at seventeen was able to open a small repair shop at the end of the main street in Wilson.

Charles Darden went on to building his business -- in part to prove to the family of the woman he fell in love with that he was worthy -- and then expanded into other businesses, including a store where he also sold produce he grew, and a funeral parlor.  He set an example for his community, taught his ten children the value of hard work, and encouraged them to get a good education.  In fact, when his adopted town of Wilson built a high school for black students, they named it after him.

Papa Darden was seldom known to travel, yet he attended the graduations, from elementary to graduate school, of every one of his children.  Without a doubt, he must have been the proudest "papa" in the group, for in his lifetime, against many odds, he saw three sons become physicians, two become lawyers, and two become morticians, while two of his daughters became teachers and one a nurse.

Norma Jean and Carole Darden are the daughters of Charles Darden's youngest son, "Bud."  They spent time gathering stories and recipes from both sides of their family, and present them in a way that shows the reader what sort of people these family members are or were.  They have a lot to be proud of.

There are a variety of recipes that I want to try.  I love collard greens in a savory, flavorful broth; I want to try Papa Darden's wines and Aunt Artelia's hush puppies; the hot crab-meat salad looks scrumptious; and the candy recipes are inviting.  What I chose was the Gingerbread Waffles, not only because they look good (I love gingerbread and the spice mixture that is in it) but I was in a Sunday-morning brunch kind of mood.

Gingerbread Waffles (page 301)

2 eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup molasses

1 cup sour milk (see note)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 cup melted butter

Beat eggs until light.  Add sugar, molasses, and sour milk.  Sift dry ingredients together.  Add to egg mixture and beat together until smooth.  Add butter.  Cook as you would regular waffles.

Yield:  6 to 8 servings

Note:  To make sour milk, add 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar to 1 cup milk

My Notes

I didn't have molasses so I substituted dark Karo syrup.  I think the molasses would make the flavor richer and bolder.  

I made the sour milk first as I know it needs to sit a little while after it is mixed.

The waffle iron started heating as soon as I got out all the ingredients.  It always works best when it has had a chance to heat up well before I ever try baking the first waffle.

The eggs were whisked until they were foamy.

Instead of sifting the dry ingredients, I measured them into a bowl and whisked them until they were well-blended.

It didn't take long to beat the batter until it was smooth.  This picture was taken after the melted butter was added in:

It smelled so good with all the spices!

I brushed a little butter over both sides of the hot waffle iron, then poured the batter onto the center.  Every waffle came out beautifully!  

The Verdict

My guest taster and I tried them without any spreads or toppings.  The spice mixture came through, which is what sells it to me.  We also tried them with a little butter and also with some Lemon Goop, which complimented the ginger flavor well.  All three ways are recommended!

Lemon Goop is a recipe I have tried several times, as given by Dorie Greenspan.  Click here for her recipe.  It is easy to make and you also get a great syrup out of it.  We have used the goop as a spread on breads, and the syrup in a variety of ways, like mixing it with soy sauce and black pepper to make a tasty marinade for salmon.  She also recommends making it into a salad dressing.  The goop is lemony and tart, barely sweet, a little salty.  You might think it is like lemon curd, but it is mostly concentrated lemon and not at all like the curd.

Success!  This recipe made five full waffles, each of which breaks into four small pieces.  What we didn't eat was frozen, and I look forward to another Sunday brunch with it.

You just can't go wrong with fixing waffles, and to add the lovely gingerbread spice mix just makes it even better.  

A Brown and Polson Fruit Pudding

 I was back perusing Mr. Charles Elmé Francatelli's book, A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Class.  I first wrote about it in this recipe:  Sausage Rolls and Queen Victoria.  The book was published in 1861.

Something that caught my attention was recipe #47:  Brown and Polson Pudding.  In the ingredients list he has "six ounces of Brown and Polson's prepared Indian corn", which he later describes as 

a most excellent and economical article of food, equal to arrow-root, and will prove, on trial, to be both substantial and nutritive, and also easy of digestion to the most delicate stomachs.

My first thought was that he was describing corn meal, and I would expect this recipe to be something like a spoonbread.  But that connection to arrowroot made me rethink it.  

A quick surfing around the internet produced this result from  http://letslookagain.com/tag/history-of-brown-polson/:

John Polson Jr (1825 - 1900) discovered a method for manufacturing pure starch from maize, which he called corn flour.  He patented the process in 1854.  It was the first corn flour to be manufactured in Britain.

In fact, the site says Brown and Polson's is still for sale in Britain!  Here is what the vintage container looked like:

At this point I really wanted to try a pudding made from cornflour, but I moved to recipe #48, 

Brown and Polson Fruit Pudding

Prepare the pudding batter as indicated in the foregoing Number, and when you have poured one-half of it into the greased pie dish, strew about two pounds of any kind of fruit upon this, such as gooseberries, currants, plums, cherries, etc., and then pour the remainder of the batter all over the fruit.  Bake the pudding an hour and a quarter.  Peeled apples or pears may be used for the same purpose.

Here is the foregoing Number:

No. 47.  Brown and Polson Pudding

Ingredients, six ounces of Brown and Polson's prepared Indian corn, two quarts of milk, two ounces of sugar, a bit of cinnamon or lemon-peel, a pinch of salt, three eggs.  Mix all the above ingredients (except the eggs) in a saucepan, and stir them on the fire till they come to a boil; then add the eggs beat up; mix thoroughly, pour the batter into a pie-dish greased with butter, and bake the pudding for one hour.

I chose to do a half-recipe.

 My Redaction

1 quart whole milk

3 ounces cornstarch (not Brown and Polson, sadly)

1 ounce sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch salt

2 eggs, well-beaten

24 ounce jar Morello cherries, drained (reserve the liquid)

The milk went into the saucepan, then I weighed out the dry ingredients.  I whisked them together in the bowl and then whisked them into the cold milk.  

The saucepan went onto the stove over medium heat.  I didn't stir it the whole time, but I did stir it often.  As it heated, the mixture became thicker and foamy.  

When it just started boiling, I took it off the heat, and poured in the beaten eggs while whisking.  This thickened the mixture even more, so I quickly poured half into the greased pie-dish.  Then I spooned the cherries over it (they sank) until they were fairly evenly distributed.

At that point I poured and spooned the rest of the batter over the top.  Some of it was very thick and sticking to the bottom of the saucepan, but it didn't scorch.  I used a scraper to get the rest.

It went into a preheated 350 degree F oven.

After one hour, the top was browning nicely but the center was still very jiggly, so I reduced the temperature to 325 degrees F while it cooked another 15 minutes.

It smelled lovely!

While it was baking, I decided to make a sauce from the cherry juice.  There was about 1 cup juice (my estimation) so I put in two big spoonfuls of sugar, and 1 tablespoon cornstarch.  That all was whisked well and then placed over medium high heat.  I whisked it constantly until it boiled, then reduced the heat and simmered it (while whisking) for one minute.  It cleared and thickened.  Once that minute was over, I took it off the heat and mixed in a splash of almond extract.  It cooled while the pudding continued to bake.

After baking it for one hour and a quarter, I took the now well-browned pudding out of the oven.  It was still very jiggly but a stick put into the middle came out clean.  I left it to cool.

The Verdict

I tasted the batter right out of the saucepan.  It was good!  Thick, creamy, mild in flavor, slightly sweet.  I could have eaten it as it was, with a spoon.  This made me look back at his recipe #49, Brown and Polson Thick Milk, which is very similar to this batter but without the eggs.  He has you boil it for ten minutes to make a dish that "is most excellent for children's breakfast or supper, and would be found both cheaper and better for their health than a sloppy mess of tea."

As the pudding cooled, the top sank and the center firmed up nicely.  

I tried to serve it by cutting it into wedges, but only the top crust cut; the interior was soft and would not hold a shape.  I ended up serving it with a spoon.  It was still warm when we tried it.

The flavor was mild, slightly sweet, and the cherries were prominent.  My guest taster wondered if there was cheese in it.  I wished for more cinnamon to add some complexity to it.

Overall, it was good.  We both felt it was "a keeper."  

After we tasted it thoroughly as it came out of the pan, we tried it with the cherry sauce I had made.

Oh, my!  That added a lot more flavor and interest to the dish!  It was a hit and my guest taster said, "I think I'm hooked on this."  We ate our fill and enjoyed it very much.

Success!

I tried the leftovers the next day.  This dish chilled had a texture that reminded me strongly of bread pudding.  And it was still tasty!  I'm so glad I made it with cherries.

Dead Men's Bones -- a dessert biscuit

I enjoy watching the Great British Baking Show.  This does not surprise anyone!  I am not a dedicated baker -- I tend to wander here and there in the cooking world (again, not a surprise) -- but that show is a delight.  I often wonder what I would do if I was in the contestants' shoes, and honestly assess my skills as seriously lacking in comparison with theirs.

The technical challenge is especially intriguing to someone who plays with old recipes.  The "pared down" recipes sound so much like what old recipes say!  "Mix it, cook it, and serve" quite often are the type of directions old recipes have, or they say things like "boil" without specifying how hard, how long.  (Note to my gentle readers:  "boiling beef" means use a gentle simmer, or the meat becomes tough and chewy.  Trust me on this one.)

So when I was reading The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie and spotted the sweet biscuit recipe called "Dead Men's Bones," I was intrigued.  I didn't realize how much like a GBBS technical challenge it would be until I set out to try it.

The Lady's book was written during her lifetime and published by her husband after her death.  It is a compilation of Victorian era recipes and, because of the large number of them as well as their simplicity and the variations due to many cooks contributing, is considered to be very important and representative of the time.  In a previous post, I made the recipe for Frontignac (elderflower syrup).  Click here to read it.

Halloween is rapidly approaching and I wanted to make this recipe available in time for it.  

From page 27, in the "Biscuits, Sweet" section, we are given:

This looks pretty straightforward.

5 ounces all-purpose flour

4 ounces sugar

3 egg whites

vanilla to taste

My Notes

I used vanilla-scented sugar, so I did not add any more vanilla.  

Now here is where the technical challenge jumped right in:   How much should the egg whites be whipped?  

I decided to take them to about firm peak.

Here is where the trouble began.  When I mixed in the flour and sugar, the whole thing became thick and stiff.

I suspected (and I was right) that there was no way this would go through a funnel.  I decided to drop spoonfuls onto my baking sheet and bake them at 325 degrees F.  After 11 minutes they were very light brown on the bottom.

When they cooled, they were crunchy but not crisp.  They had a nice vanilla and sweet flavor.  

However nice they were, they were not what I expected from the recipe.

Take Two

I decided to add about 3 tablespoons water to thin the batter down and make it runny enough to pass through a funnel.

It worked but it flowed so slooooooooowly that I ended up using a chopstick to push it through.

You can see above that I made them small.  I tried the round (ratafia) and the long shapes and a few creations of my own.

I had no idea how long to let them "rise a little before the fire" and the batter was spreading so I waited maybe five minutes before putting them into the oven at 325 deg F.  It took 8 minutes to get the bottoms lightly browned.

Then I glazed them with just powdered sugar mixed with a little water and brushed on them while they were hot.

They weren't really crisp as much as they were chewy, and too sticky from the glaze, even after they cooled.  The flavor was a nice vanilla but, frankly, they weren't interesting to eat.  After a few hours, they were downright hard to bite.

Take Three

I used the same quantities but this time didn't beat the whites very much.  Really just until foamy and not showing liquid white below the foam.

The flour and sugar mix still made it stiff so I added a little bit of water until it was thick but flowed smoothly.

I put some on my silicone-coated pan and some on a standard baking sheet and baked them at 350 degrees F.  My hope was that baking them a little faster would crisp them.  

At 10 minutes, they weren't looking baked.  At 12 minutes they were almost there.  And then life intervened and I didn't get back to them until 14 minutes...

The ones on the silicone pan came off and were obviously overbaked.  You can see that they flowed together while baking as I had left a good 1/2 inch or more between them.  

They did not taste good as they were tough and dry.

The ones on the standard baking sheet were glued solid on the surface.  

You can see the broken one -- that is where I used a spatula with great effort to remove the cookie.  The rest had to be soaked about an hour in hot water to be removed.

The Verdict

I was glad I was not in the tent and that Paul and Prue were not watching.  What a disaster!  I ended up throwing the cookies away.

Failure.

I have since done some reading.  I probably should have baked them at a lower temperature (say, 300 degrees F) instead of increasing it to 350.  

I'm not sure how much the egg whites should have been beaten.  

The addition of the flour is what bothered me.  If it had been just sugar, the cookies would have been a crispy meringue.  The flour seemed to bring the whole mixture to a thick dough instead of a batter.

What Lady Clark would have done is beyond me.

Sausage Rolls and Queen Victoria

 Wow.  I watched the entire three seasons of Masterpiece Theater's Victoria series.  I am excited for the fourth season!  I think the actors are wonderful and I am thoroughly caught up in the stories of their lives.  But, as what happened when I watched Downton Abbey, my attention got riveted on the kitchen scenes.

I was impressed with the actor, Ferdinand Kingsley, who played the chef Charles Elmé Francatelli.  Something they showed several times was him vigorously mixing things in bowls -- and the actor looked like he was really putting in the effort it took to make mayonnaise and other goodies.  

My favorite guest taster noticed my interest, did some research, and discovered that Mr. Francatelli (the real one!) had published some cookbooks.  He bought me A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes.  It was originally published in 1861.  

What I like about this book is that the man who wrote it was in charge of cooking for Queen Victoria and her royal household.  Later, he was a cook/chef/manager for a number of notable clubs in England, mixing with all sorts of upper class people, I'm sure.  He could have looked down upon the working class as not worthy of tasty food that is prepared well.  He could have thought his talents and experience were too high for the common folk.  But he wrote this book, for them.  He included tips and advice to the woman of the house, encouraging her to think broadly about what she can fix with inexpensive cuts of meat, or to treat her family, or to stretch what she can afford.  To me, he comes across as a kind man.

There are several recipes I want to try.  This one, Sausage Rolls, is quick and convenient because today I have bread dough.  Usually I make one big loaf with my sourdough starter but today I used half to make a loaf and the other half is reserved for this recipe.  It is recipe number 85 on page 44.

Sausage Rolls

Procure a quartern of dough from the baker's, knead this with four ounces of butter, dripping, or chopped suet; divide it into twelve equal parts, and use each piece of paste to enfold a beef sausage in it; place these rolls on a baking-tin, and bake them in the oven for about twenty minutes or half an hour.

My Redaction

1 pound and a little more sourdough bread dough

1 ounce and a little more butter (softened)

1/2 pound homemade sausage, blend #3  (click here to learn what this is)

My Notes

A quartern of dough was about four pounds by weight.  My dough was a little over 1 pound, so I kneaded it with a little over 1 ounce of butter.  This made the dough very slippery and buttery. 

I didn't have beef sausages but, being a resourceful working-class cook, I made do with some of my homemade sausage.  I cut the meat into four equal pieces and patted them into beef sausage shapes.  

I cut the dough into four equal pieces, flattened them out as best I could, and embedded a piece of sausage in each one.  This was challenging because buttery dough does not really want to stick to itself.  I persevered and encased the sausage completely, although I don't think the rolls were really very attractive to view.

They baked in a preheated oven at 375 degrees F. for 30 minutes, which made them lightly brown and smell really good.  

The Verdict

I let them cool to be comfortable to handle, and served them with a good, coarse mustard.  My guest taster and I weren't hungry enough for a full meal, so we just had one roll each and some pinot noir on the side.

I worried that the bread-to-sausage ratio would be too big, that we would feel like we were eating chunks of bread that might have some sausage in it somewhere, but that wasn't the case.  There was a lot of bread but it wasn't dominating over the sausage except near the ends, which is usually what happens when you have a bread-encased whatever.  

The butter proved to be a good addition.  The bread was flaky, not doughy or dense, which my guest taster commented on favorably.  I was pleased with the result.  A few places were a little undercooked but not in any way that put me off.

The flavor was what you might expect:  tasty bread with tasty sausage.  The mustard was a good addition, as long as it was put on lightly, or you couldn't really taste the meat.  The bread and meat combination was a good one, but that is not surprising.  I enjoyed it and so did my guest taster.

It might have been better to cook them at 400 degrees F instead.  The bread soaked up the fat from the sausage, especially on the dough between the meat and the metal tray.  It was moist but not raw or sticky.  I think a higher temperature might have browned the surface better, and cooked the dough more to the middle, but I do have to point out that the sausage was cooked all the way through.

I suspect that I should have kneaded the dough longer to mix the butter in.  I'm not sure why I think that but it seems like it might have given the dough more time to absorb it before shaping and baking.

Success!  I would do this again for a simple dinner or fun food for a gathering.  We had the two other sausages for breakfast the next morning, which was tasty and fun.  I might try it again (the next time I make bread!) with actual sausages, and attempt to make the bread casing thinner.

And, just for kicks and bragging rights, here is my loaf of sourdough bread:

Pickled Shrimp - The Carolina Housewife

Last year when I went to South Carolina for a week, I came home with several cookbooks.  This is not a surprise as I prefer them as my souvenirs when I travel.  I wrote about one of them shortly after I returned:  see this post on Cheese Pudding.

Another book I found was The Carolina Housewife by Sarah Rutledge.  (ISBN 978-0-87249-383-4)

It was originally published in 1847 (mine is a facsimile).  Ms. Rutledge was a descendent of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and related to another.  She was born and died in Charleston and was educated in England.  The introduction, written in 1979 by a cousin, Anna Wells Rutledge, holds stories of what Charleston was like during Sarah Rutledge's time as well as tidbits of its history over the decades.  I certainly got a feel for what life was like there!

I particularly enjoyed Anna's "translation" of the culinary terms used in the book:  gill as one-half cup, hyson tea as green tea from China, shaddock as grapefruit (although she mentions our modern day grapefruit has been developed beyond what Sarah knew), and "brown it with a salamander" meant to broil under a heated metal plate.  (page xxvi).

Today's recipe is on page 216.

To Pickle Shrimps

Pick your shrimps, and rinse them well in salt and water; take two parts of strong vinegar, and one of water, add a few allspice, and boil this pickle; pour it hot over the shrimps.  If the shrimps are to be sent to a distance, the pickle should be boiled again; adding a little more vinegar, and pouring on the shrimps hot, again.  They must be entirely covered by the pickle; a paper wet with brandy, should be placed over the top.  They will thus keep sound a long time.

My Redaction

2 pounds medium shrimp

1 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup water

6 whole allspice berries

My shrimp were raw and frozen, so I defrosted them, put them in 2 quarts of boiling salted water (1/2 tsp salt), brought it back to a boil, then simmered them for 2 minutes.  The picture above shows them after I drained them and rinsed them with cool water until they stopped steaming.

To "pick" my shrimps, I simply peeled them, removing the tail and any remaining little bits of the vein I found after the shell had come off.

I filled a clean one quart canning jar with water and put it in the microwave on high for five minutes.  (Put a plate under it to catch any water that might boil over.) While that was going on, I put the vinegar, water, and allspice berries in a pan and brought them to a boil.

Then I dumped the water from the jar and filled it with the shrimp.  The two pounds fit in there pretty well; just a few were kept out only because I didn't want to stuff them in.  

I poured the boiling "pickle" over the shrimp until it covered them by at least 1/2 inch.  That used up almost all of the liquid.

Then I put the lid on the jar and let it cool on the counter.

My Notes

I wasn't sure if my vinegar would have qualified as "strong" but I went ahead and mixed it with the water.  

I hoped that 6 allspice berries were enough to give some flavor.  

I was surprised that all the shrimp fit in the one jar.  (Honestly, I had hoped they all didn't so I could try other recipes with them.  That will be for another day.)

The hot vinegar sealed the lid (it popped, as a good canning jar lid should), so I skipped using the paper soaked in brandy idea.

The Verdict

I looked around on the internet for other shrimp pickling recipes.  They tend to contain many more flavors than simply vinegar and allspice but those recipes were for making a complete appetizer that was ready to go on the table out of the jar.  They looked good!  One of them noted that the longer you keep the shrimp in the flavored liquor, the more "pickley" they tasted.  

The jar sat on the counter for four days.  This was tough for me to do because I really, really dislike food poisoning, and I worried the whole time that I was making something that would make me sick.  But I stuck it out.

When the day came to try it, the jar looked just as it did in the picture above, with a little bit of sediment at the bottom.  The liquid had a mild scent and the shrimp was firm, not slimy or bad smelling.  My guest taster and I were both willing to do a taste test.

It tasted of shrimp.  The flavor was lightly vinegary, not enough to overwhelm the delicate shrimp flavor, so I guess the 2 to 1 ratio of vinegar to water was just right.   I couldn't taste the allspice but I couldn't say it didn't have influence.  Probably very minimally.  Perhaps cracking the spices or using more would have been better, but I don't know how much allspice I really wanted to taste.

The goal was to make shrimp last a long time, not make it an intriguing flavor.  I think the recipe accomplished that goal.  We tried it straight out of the jar and then later on top of a tossed green salad.  It was fine!

I can see why this would be a good baseline recipe for making the shrimp more exciting.  The online recipes (mostly from the USA's deep south) include capers, onions, red pepper flakes, apple cider vinegar, Tabasco sauce, lemon slices, and/or various herbs and spices.  

This was an easy recipe to prepare.  The most "challenging" part was peeling all the shrimp, which turned out to be a nice contemplative time at the dining room table.  Everything else was quick and simple.

Even though Ms. Rutledge assures us the shrimp will keep for a long time, after the jar was opened, I kept it in the refrigerator.  

Success!  I'd do it again, especially as an appetizer if I added more flavors.

Another Medieval Syrian Dish! Eggplant, The Third Kind

 I was inspired yet again by Charles Perry's translation of Scents and Flavors.  This time I had two big eggplants that were just asking to be made medieval.

This one, under the category of eggplant dishes, is on page 241 and is recipe #8.90.

The Third Kind

Fry the eggplants in sesame oil, then take the crumb of cold kumāj bread and put it through a sieve.  Mince parsley, mint, and rue -- predominantly parsley -- and rub each herb separately with salt until they wilt.  Rub the bread crumbs with them until mixed and add sesame paste and rub until mixed.  Then put in mixed spices, coriander seeds, caraway, wine vinegar, lemon juice sweetened with sugar, and a little olive oil.  Put the mixture on the eggplants along with a little pounded garlic, which will perfume and enhance the flavor.

My Redaction

1/4 cup fine, soft bread crumbs

1/2 cup minced parsley (measured "fluffy", not compacted)

1/4 cup minced mint (fluffy)

1/8 cup minced rue (fluffy, as much as rue would fluff, anyway)

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon tahini

1 bay leaf

1/5 of a nut of nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon each of ginger, black pepper, cardamom, mace, caraway seed, ground coriander

dash of cloves

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon sugar

drizzle of olive oil

1/2 clove garlic, peeled

2 large eggplants, sliced and ends removed

sesame oil, about 1 cup for frying

My Notes

Kumāj bread is listed as "a thick flatbread of Turkish origin, cooked in a pan set on embers." (page 290).  I didn't have this, so I used a whole wheat bagel.  I broke the bagel in half, then tore up one half into small pieces.  I then rubbed it through a wire sieve until I got a lovely pile of crumbs.

I did not fry the eggplant first.  The sauce looked complicated so I decided to tackle it first.  

Notice there are no quantities listed for the sauce ingredients.  I had to wing it!  I tried to keep in mind that I needed enough of a flavorful sauce to put on the two big eggplants (I decided not to use the small eggplants, even though they were from my garden), but I didn't want to make a huge amount.

I started with the herbs.  First I minced them and then guessed at the proportions:  one part rue to two parts mint to three parts parsley.  This made it "predominantly parsley" while hopefully allowing the flavor of rue to enter without the bitterness being too strong.  When I estimated their quantities, they were "fluffy" measurements -- the minced herbs were not packed down at all.

I have never before rubbed herbs with salt to make them wilt.  I wasn't quite sure what changes to expect.  So I sprinkled them and rubbed and also used at pestle to pound them a little.  I'm not sure I saw much of a difference, but this is where I stopped:

I put in a little scoop of bread crumbs and mixed those in with a spoon.  Then the tahini.  

The spice list was really long!  On page 41, there is a list of what constitutes "mixed spices", so I chose what I had from there.  Everything was supposed to be pounded separately, but have you ever tried powdering a bay leaf by itself in a mortar?  It wasn't going to happen.

I tried putting a piece of nutmeg in with it, hoping that pounding them together would break up the leaf.

Nope, that strategy didn't work.  The nutmeg went to powder and the leaf stayed about the same.  So I put all the spices into the mortar (pounded or not) and started pounding.

After a lot of it was powdered, I sifted the fine spices into the herb mix and returned the chunks to the mortar and kept pounding.  This worked really well to reduce the bay leaf to powder.

Next up:  the liquids.  I decided that the primary flavor should be from the white wine vinegar, with the lemon and sugar to balance out the sweet-sour blend.  I also included just a drizzle of olive oil.

It took several adjustments to get it right.  At first the texture was a damp paste that tasted really good!

But I really wanted a spreadable, wet sauce, so I kept adding vinegar and lemon and sugar until I got this:

I decided to pound the garlic in the mortar and add it directly to the sauce.

Then I began to fry the eggplant.  The slices were about 1/2 inch thick.  The pan was heated to medium, I put in some sesame oil, and added the eggplant.  They soaked the oil up like sponges!  I had to keep adding oil until they stopped drying the pan out and then the slices actually cooked in the oil.

It took two large fry pans to cook all the eggplant in a timely manner.  

As the slices cooked to browned and tender all the way through, even at the edges, I moved them to a platter and spread a little of the sauce over them.  

They stacked nicely and looked good when they were all cooked.  I ran out of sauce with one slice left.

The Verdict

I served it with a pine nut couscous and apple slices.

The eggplant was really good!  The sauce was spicy, tingling on the tongue, bright in flavor, and well-balanced between sweet and sour.

My guest taster and I agreed that the sauce made the dish exciting.  We tasted the eggplant without the sauce and liked it, but with the sauce, it was just that much better.

The sesame oil made it rich, the eggplant added body and moisture, and the sauce added a zing.  

I couldn't really taste all the spices and I couldn't really tell that there was specifically vinegar and lemon juice in it, but overall, it had the sour and the spicy and the mint.  We loved it and ate most of it.

Success!

I honestly think it would be hard to mess this sauce up.  I just guessed at the amounts and it all came together.  Even if you put in too much of one ingredient, you have opportunities to balance it out with some of the other ingredients.  

I'm really glad I made it as liquid as I did.  That made it easy to scoop a little in a spoon, drop it onto a slice, and then spread it over the slice.  It helped me portion it out over most of the slices.  Although having some extra sauce would not be a problem!