These patties, or ‘polpette’ as they are called in Italian are quite simple to make and create a bit of interest taste-wise on account of ingredients that ‘pop’: cumin, spring onion and fresh mint. They’re dead easy to make and are crowd pleasers because you can eat them as a finger food or serve them as a part of a main course. I made them for the first time just over a year ago, on a whim, and have kept making them since, tweaking them this way and that. There is no real recipe, if you see what I mean. Just a bunch of ingredients thrown together. There are countless recipes for aubergine/eggplant patties in Southern Italy and this one would not differ too much save for one ingredient: cumin. I’ve never come across an Italian recipe calling for cumin.
Try them, you might like them.
Ingredients
Aubergines/eggplant, plastic bread, spring onion or ordinary onion, parsely if you don’t have mint, tomato paste, cumin, sweet paprika, salt, 1 egg, breadcrumbs, 1 tablespoon grated parmigiano
This is one aubergine, sliced, and cooked in the oven until it dried out a little. About half an hour. Wait for the slices to cool before proceeding.
Some slices of bread (this is what I call plastic bread).
Break up the bread.
Add the parsely. And whizz the parsely too.
Add some cumin: a couple of teaspoons say …
Add 1 peeled onion, cut into quarters. Spring onions are better, but I didn’t have any that day.
This is a tube of tomato paste, tomato concentrate. My fridge is never without one because this tomato can be added to so many recipes. Just a squidge here and there.
Okay so here is a view from the top: I processed the bread and then the parsely. After I added an onion, some cumin, a squidge of the tomato paste, a good pinch of salt and, last, the bright orange you see on the right, some sweet paprika.
Remember these? Time to add them.
The end result was somewhat sticky.
I transferred this mix to a bowl, and added Italian breadcrumbs, which are very dry, a tablespoon of freshly grated parmigiano, and 1 egg. I used a spoon to bring the mix together, adding more and more breadcrumbs until I reached the consistency I was after.
A little on the laborious side but not rocket science, it was now time to shape the mix into patties . I prevailed upon my husband to do this while he was watching some news on the TV. If he can do this, anyone can. (Not that I was idly lounging about, I hasten to add, I was otherwise occupied in the kitchen and getting our dinner ready. The patties were just an ‘extra’.)
I left the patties in the fridge overnight. I fried them in ordinary groundnut oil, the next day, and served them with some tahini sauce.
I had been asked over to a potluck dinner at a friend’s house and all was well.
That’s some tahini sauce in the middle.
I suppose you could also serve them with ketchup, why not? A squeeze of lemon? Leave the egg and cheese out, and these can be served as a vegan dish too.
To me … these polpette speak of summer and warmth and longer days.
While the chopping of the sausage and the slicing of the courgettes was going on, I cooked a couple of garlic cloves in a puddle of olive oil. I tilted the pan at one point, so that the cloves and the oil coverged into a ‘corner’ of the saucepan – that way the garlic cooked faster and better and I was able to control the cookingiand make sure the garlic did not go brown, only golden.
I transferred the cooked pasta (well, it was slightly undercooked at this point) directly into the saucepan with the courgette and sausage sauce.
The heat was on, and I kept adding a ladle of the pasta water to the mix, and tossing and/or stirring the pasta with the wooden spoon, until it was indeed cooked to a texture we call “al dente” in Italian.
Now was the time to add the courgette slices.
I switched the heat off. And added basil and mint – just roughly torn with my fingers.
A good grating of parmigiano (parmesan cheese).
A twist of pepper, if you fancy it.
And … job done! Ready to be served and gobbled up.
I transferred the cooked courgettes into a saucepan and added the asparagus stock – and proceeded to blend all the ingredients into a thick creamy stock. I added a little squeeze of lemon juice.
I coated them with olive oil.
And roasted them in the oven until they went a nice golden colour.
I added more water to the asparagus and courgette stock and got it simmering. I dropped a large tablespoon of butter into it for good measure.
And now I could get cracking the the risotto. As you can see from this photo, the stock is simmering away in the background and the risotto is being toasted in the foreground. Please notice: no olive oil, no butter, no nuffink. Once the rice turns pearly white, add a ladle of the hot stock, let it get absorbed, and add more.
A risotto will take about 18-20 minutes to cook. Once you are getting close to the end, add the asparagus that you chopped up, as well as the spears. Keeping stirring and keep adding the stock. Taste and add salt and pepper.
Add the roasted courgette rounds, the mint and the rosemary. Nearly there.
And here is the touch of cheat’s genius: a good dollop of mascarpone. Add some of the grated parmesan too, at this point, and taste. You might need more salt, a twist of white pepper would not go astray. A little bit of butter will also help.
This was a serving of the risotto the next day, i.e. the leftovers. I didn’t get a chance to take photos as I was serving the risotto, there was too much chatting going on and people’s appetites were more than ready for quick relief. Those pretty flowers are flowers that I picked from my chives on the balcony. Look closely and you’ll see a couple of little cubes: those are bits of apple. The apple complemented the dish really well.
Thank you for inspiring me Belinda!
I got my greengrocer to shell the peas and broadbeans for me – phew. Asparagus are easy enough to deal with. I snipped the end bits of the asparagus spears, and sliced the rest of them into rounds. I cooked the vegetables in separate batches, because they all have different cooking times. I thought I was being practical using the same cooking water, and that it would impart a je ne sais quoi to it to when the pasta was going to be added. And so it was. The only suprise was the colour of the cooking water once I did add the broadbeans – it went a weird dark pinky-red colour. Fortunately it did not ruin the end result. But next time I will cook the broadbeans separately altogether.
Now add the mascarpone which will be very thick at first. It needs to be loosened up. The heat will help.
Now add all the previously cooked veggies.
It doesn’t look very creamy here and that’s because I had to get on with the business of finishing it off and there was no obliging soul in the kitchen to take a photo for me. All you need to know is that I kept adding cooking water a little at a time until I reached what I wanted.
I had run out of fresh mint so you are just going to have to use your imagination.