French Recipe: Caviar d’Aubergines-Eggplant Paste!

Summer is a season for fresh eggplants (aubergines in French and British English) aplenty and this seemingly modest vegetable can be easily turned into an elegant and sophisticated dish, appetizer or a finishing touch for a multitude of dishes.
This is the basic recipe of a French I was wolfing down every summer back home that is so easy to reproduce even here in Japan!
This is the basic recipe for Caviar d’Aubergines or Eggplant Paste that you can transform and expand on at will!

Eggplants: 6 (only 3 shown in picture for lack of space!)
Fresh garlic: 2 cloves (reduce if you are not too keen on garlic taste. Can be replaced with fresh red chili peppers)
Rosemary: a small sprig (can be ignored or replaced with another fresh herb)
A few black olives (not on the picture above). Use spicy ones if you like your food so.
Lemon: 1:2 Important as it will preserve the color and the food!
Salt
Black pepper
Optional spices
High quality olive oil

Cut the eggplants/aubergines in halves and grill them until their inner surface gets dark.
Do it in two batches if necessary.

Cut garlic cloves in halves and take out the central green core. Important as that particular part is indigestible!

Crush and chop garlic as finely as possible.
Chop rosemary as fine as possible.
Can be done with a blender.
If using a blender use it for the above first as the eggplants may not be blended too long or they will becone a running paste!

Chop the black olives as finely as possible. Do not blend.

Once the eggplants/aubergines are properly cooked, scoop the flesh with a spoon.
Discard any long dry filaments or burned skin.

Drop the eggplant/aubergine flesh, garlic, rosemary, and black olives into a bowl.
Add lemon juice, a little salt (you can rectify the seasoning later!), black pepper.
Mix roughly.
Add olive oil little by little and whisk to form a kind of mayonnaise (without eggs?).
Taste regularly to check if you have poured in enough olive oil.
Rectify seasoning with salt, pepper, and spices if deemed necessary.
Blend a few seconds if you wish to obtain a smoother paste, but do be easy with the blender. Hand work is definetly recommended!

Some like to eat lukewarm especially if you add it immediately to another dish, but I prefer to preserve it in the fridge for snacks and appetizers!

I like it best on a toasted piece of superior bread!

You can add the caviar d’aubergines to many dishes as a finishing touch such as ratatouille, pizzas, sandwiches, hamburgers, eggs mimosa, carpaccio.
Suggestion: prepare very fresh white flesh fish cut into thin slices. Apply a thin layer of caviar d’aubergine on them, roll them and secure them with toothpicks to be served as tapas!
Best enjoyed with a solid re wine or a great craft beer!

RECOMMENDED RELATED WEBSITES

So Good Sushi Restaurant in Nice France
Navigating Nagoya by Paige, Shop with Intent by Debbie, BULA KANA in Fiji, Kraemer’s Culinary blog by Frank Kraemer in New York,Tokyo Food File by Robbie Swinnerton, Green Tea Club by Satoshi Nihonyanagi in Shizuoka!, Mind Some by Tina in Taiwan, Le Manger by Camille Oger (French), The Indian Tourist, Masala Herb by Helene Dsouza in Goa, India, Mummy I Can Cook! by Shu Han in London, Pie
rre.Cuisine, Francescannotwrite, My White Kitchen, Foodhoe, Chucks Eats, Things that Fizz & Stuff, Five Euro Food by Charles,Red Shallot Kitchen by Priscilla,With a Glass, Nami | Just One Cookbook, Peach Farm Studio, Clumsyfingers by Xethia, PepperBento, Hapabento, Kitchen Cow, Lunch In A Box, Susan at Arkonlite, Vegan Lunch Box; Tokyo Tom Baker, Daily Food Porn/Osaka, Only Nature Food Porn, Happy Little Bento, J-Mama’s Kitchen, Cook, Eat, Play, Repeat, Bento Lunch Blog (German), Adventures In Bento, Anna The Red’s Bento Factory, Ohayo Bento,