Learn how to Broil an Eggplant

Learn how to broil an eggplant for Swordfish and Eggplant Bundles with Artichokes.

Hi! I am chef Amy Riolo. Today, we are making swordfish and eggplant bundles with artichokes, garlic, and mint. Let's get started by preparing our eggplant. What I have here is one medium eggplant which I have cut into very thin slices. You can do this on one of the mandolins to grate them, if you want them perfectly even or you can just use a sharp knife and do it that way. That's the way that I did it today. It's very good to leave the skin on the eggplant. Eggplant skin actually has a lot of nutrients in it. So we are going to start by layering our eggplant onto a baking sheet like this and they are great to work with because they are like little sponges. They absorb so many different flavors that you can use them in a lot of different types of recipes and always have great and varied results with them. So now let's brush them with our extra virgin olive oil. Now we are just going to brush these lightly, just so that they don't get burnt under the boiler. I recommend for people to do a lot of eggplant at one time, large quantities and then keep the eggplant in the refrigerator. You can add it to salads, you can top it with plain Greek style yogurt, just for delicious snack or a side dish and it tastes really good. Instead of just making it in this one dish, you can get a lot of dishes out of one. Added to pasta sauces, it would be really wonderful. Now this dish is a typical Southern Italian dish. Both eggplants and swordfish came to the Island of Sicily in the 9th century via the Arabs. The good thing for us is eggplant is very nutritious, so that gives us a lot more versatility when we are looking for interesting dishes to bring to the dinner table every night. So now that our eggplants are all brushed with the olive oil evenly, we can take them over to the boiler. We will boil them for about three to five minutes each side, just until they are tender and lightly golden.