Aubergine Polpette.

Curiously onomatopeic, polpette is a word that conjures up many a warm and fuzzy feelings in Italian. 

Polpette di melanzane.

A staple of Italian home cooking, they refer to any small, hand-formed and cooked balls made with a variety of mushed ingredients. 

Most traditionally made with beef and served with a tomato sauce – commonly but less glamorously known as meatballs in English – polpette are often made with other ingredients, the options of which are seemingly endless, from squid, tuna or white fish, to various seasonal vegetables. They involve getting your hands dirty, and as all such things are also fun to make, and especially so with children – and a great way to get them to eat ingredients they might normally be wary of. 

This is an Aeolian recipe for polpette made with aubergines, and a wonderful way with a vegetable known to split opinions, sometimes even marriages.

“…torn from the margin of a school notebook, on which a one-line answer was written in pencil:

Very well, I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant.”

from Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Marquez

With a hearty pulp, aubergines – like cauliflower – are a very generous vegetable, with several cooking options that can render them quite meaty. Either makes a very sumptuous dip, combined with abundant doses of olive oil, and they can even be fashioned into something that is often called a “steak”, cut chunky and roasted in an oven or a grill. They also of course make delicious polpette or frittelle (the difference between the two being in shape, where polpette are round balls and fritelle their flatter relations, akin to patties).

Aubergines have a sponge-like quality and can absorb a lot of oil during cooking and so need to be handled delicately. There are various variations for making them into polpette, differing not only in the seasoning but also the cooking of the aubergines.

This is a very light recipe, which involves boiling the aubergines rather than grilling or cooking in a pan.

Once the shapes are made the balls are cooked in a pan in a small amount of olive oil, which makes them nice and crispy.

Coating them in flour before cooking in the pan prevents the oil from getting in and maintains their lightness. They can of course also be baked in the oven instead, but the texture of the balls will be different, and they will likely need some compensation in the manner of more breadcrumbs to keep them compact.

The seasoning used here is garlic, salted capers, green olives (in brine) and mint, but this also can of course be adjusted to taste –

such as using basil instead of mint or omitting the olives.

They are delicious served hot, when they have just been cooked, and even more delicious served absolutely cold, when they have just cooled, and so still retain their crispiness, but have strengthened in flavour. (They will be delicious the following day also, and even the day after, but will lose some of the crispiness once refrigerated.)

Aubergine polpette can be served as a starter or snack sprinkled with some fresh mint, or as a bigger dish with some tomato sauce (particularly a summer tomato sauce made with raw tomatoes and basil) and topped with some grated cheese such as Parmesan or a hard Ricotta.

It is a great dish for any age and can even be used as a pasta topping or sandwich filler. 

They will keep well in the fridge, and given that the additional time and effort of making more is marginal, it is highly recommended you make double the quantities, as bite size balls of anything have a habit of disappearing very fast, especially over the summer holidays, which curiously and precisely tend to coincide with aubergine season. 

RECIPE.

Serves 4

Aubergines, 4 medium or 2 large

Garlic, 4 cloves

Mint, one sprig

Salted capers, washed, 1 cup

Green or “white” olives, 10

Breadcrumbs, 1 cup

Egg, 1

Olive oil and flour, for coating and frying

Salt and pepper

1.      Peel the aubergines and cut into four chunks

2.     Immerse the aubergines in a pan of water with a couple of spoonfuls of salt and leave to soak for 10 minutes. Drain, cover in water again, salt and bring the pan to boil.

3.     Cook for 10 minutes, and leave to drain in a colander for 30-45 minutes.

4.     Chop up the aubergines, finely slice the olives, capers, mint and finely crush the garlic,

5.     Add all of the ingredients to a ball and mix, together with the breadcrumbs..

6.     Finally whisk an egg with a fork until frothy and add to the bowl.

7.     Salt and pepper to taste. The mixture should not be too dense nor too runny.

8.     Make small shapes with the help of two spoons or with your hands. Coat the balls in flour, and fry in a small-ish pan in an abundant amount of olive oil.

9.     Serve hot, straight away, on their own or accompanied by a tomato sauce or absolutely cold, sprinkled with fresh mint. (Never lukewarm).