Guest Post #1: Love your microwave

[When we visited Dylan and Moriah over the summer, they made two really good dishes that I asked Dylan to write up for me as guest blog posts. He did that last week, right before Moriah sent me a bonus post (I love a bonus post!) based on a new cookbook they've been liking, which they generously sent me a copy of as a surprise (I love a surprise!) Since Moriah's recipe was a little easier to bring together, Mom and I actually started with that one. Moriah's guest post follows. I'll get to Dylan's as soon as Mom and I have a chance to make the recipes.]

 

Dylan and I got a new cookbook called Cooking at Home, by Priya Krishna (food journalist) and David Chang (chef of Momofuku and recipient of two Michelin stars). The full title is Cooking at Home: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Recipes (and Love My Microwave). What excites us is that it’s all about improvisation and learning to adjust—or completely ignore!—a recipe, based on what you have in your kitchen and how much time you’ve got on hand.

The authors make an interesting case for recipes as a particularly contemporary, Western way to cook. In many families, recipes have been passed down for generations orally or by cooking together. Writing down a recipe, and being able to follow it, requires some particular context: the ability to read and write, the ability to take precise measurements, the math to scale those measurements proportionally, and a grocery store nearby with every niche ingredient that might be listed (or the ability to have anything shipped to your home). The authors’ goal in this book was to teach some principles of cooking in a way that is more consistent with how they cook at home: by intuition, with limited time, and using whatever ingredients happen to be in the kitchen. They make a case for using the microwave (gasp!), frozen veggies, and using less-choice cuts of meat. It seems like an awesome way to uplevel our cooking skills at home!

One of the first things we made was their “recipe” for quick & easy Eggplant Parmesan. It was so tasty that we overstuffed ourselves at dinner (or maybe that was because we took edibles while we cooked). You’ll notice it doesn’t have measurements: we went with the flow and used our best judgment, and it turned out great.

 

These are the baby eggplants Mom and I used

Mom and I were able to fit all of the eggplant rounds on one big serving platter for microwaving (but Mom snatched most of them away before I could take a picture)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the final product. It tastes a lot better than it looks; plating is not my speciality.

I so wish I could say I made this rye-sourdough bread, but it came from the kitchen of Mr. Graham. It is otherworldly and great for sopping up eggplant parm sauce (or slathering with good butter)

Microwave Eggplant Parmesan

Adapted from Cooking at Home (2021) by David Chang and Priya Krishna

 

Time: ~1 hour 

 

This recipe calls for tomato sauce, which you can make at home (we made this quick tomato sauce from the blog) or buy canned. Either way you’ll want to add some extra olive oil to the sauce, to provide the fattiness that’s missing from microwaving the eggplants instead of frying them. We also added red pepper flakes for some kick. For the eggplants, the authors prefer the long, thin Asian variety if you can find them, but any eggplant will do just fine. [Paul's comments are bracketed and in italics.]

Eggplants (see note)

Tomato sauce (see note) 

A container or two (~½ pound) of fresh mozzarella (or provolone)

Parmesan

Bread crumbs (We were out of Panko so we made some with a stale hunk of bread)

 

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 425 degrees.

2. Slice the eggplants into ½-inch-thick rounds. Arrange them on a plate and microwave for 5 to 10 minutes depending on the power of your microwave [it took even longer in the 30-year-old, 700-watt microwave Mom and I got as a wedding present]. They should be soft and fully cooked, but not deflated, when they're ready. We did this in two batches so they could fit in a single layer on the plate.

3. In the meantime, make the sauce. (If using canned sauce, taste for seasoning and add some extra olive oil.)

4. Slice the mozzarella into rounds (to fit onto the eggplant rounds) and grate the Parmesan.

5. In a large oven-safe pot [Mom and I used a 2.5-liter, 8-inch round Corningware baking dish], layer the ingredients in in this order (repeat to make as many layers as you can): sauce; eggplant; cheese (mozzarella and Parmesan); and bread crumbs. [Don't make the mistake Mom and I did and put sauce on the top, or you won't get a crispy top layer. Oops! 😞]

6. Set on the stove until it boils, then transfer into the oven. [Mom and I skipped the stovetop step because I don't think our Corningware is safe for that; I don't think this is necessary anyway because the sauce boils plenty in the oven.] Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes. If you want the top to be crispy (trust us—you do), crank the oven up to 500 degrees for the last 5 minutes of cooking. [You can also switch to the broiler for a minute or two to crisp up the top (if you haven't covered it with sauce 😞), but watch it like a hawk because it'll burn in a snap under the broiler. Just make sure your cooking vessel is oven-safe to 500 degrees or broiler-safe before you try either of these options.] Serve! [preferably with some crusty bread to sop up the yummy sauce, even if, alas, your bread will probably never be as good as Mr. Graham's]. Serves 4 to 6 (depending how many eggplants you start with).

 

Leftover Eggplant Parm Pizza

 

[One of the best things about this dish is the leftovers. Think about what goes on pizza: sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan, some veg if you like. What's in eggplant parm? Sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan, veg. So I took David Chang's suggestion and made leftover eggplant parm pizza to use up some of our leftovers. All you do is cook some of the leftover eggplant parm in a small saucepan with a few glugs of olive oil over medium-low heat. When it's warm, slather it on a premade pizza crust or naan or other flatbread. Top with some pepperoni or more Parmesan if you like (I didn't do either), and bake in a preheated 400-degree oven until warmed through, about 5 minutes.]