Guilty pleasures

TASTE:ANYONE WHO HAS spent time on the east coast of America will have come across hoagies or heroes: long rolls stuffed with thin slices of cured meats such as mortadella, prosciutto, salami and a lot of provolone cheese. To make sure it's not all about the protein, the hoagie would also contain shredded iceberg lettuce, sliced tomatoes and a good squirt of oil and vinegar, with some dried oregano thrown in there somewhere. They were soft, squishy bulging mounds of carbohydrate and protein. The tomatoes might have scraped into the five-a-day list. But only just.

They were agreeable simply because they were tasty, cheap and would fill you up for days: three vital qualities when you’re an overworked and underpaid teen. In certain pizzeria joints, you could also get sandwiches filled with veal or eggplant “Parmigiano”. Thick, greasy slabs of fried aubergine or veal, with an elasticated sheet of melted mozzarella cheese, drowning in thick tomato sauce. Again, another mountain of food that would keep you stuffed for days.

It always tasted a lot better when it had cooled down sufficiently. The combination of searingly hot cheese and deep-fried aubergine with pockets of burning oil and volcanic tomato sauce – clinging to the roof of your mouth – is not very nice. Greed was an awful incentive for diving in, but wisdom and too many war-stories from burnt hoagie veterans meant that I appreciated them better when I showed a little patience. In hindsight, I am sure it was pretty awful food, but as a permanently hungry teenager working in the US for the first time, I was always grateful for the availability of this particular type of relatively healthy fast food.

This aubergine involtini is a much posher version of the above mentioned fodder. It does take time to prepare and is not something I would just rustle up. But the advantage is that once assembled, it is just like a ready-meal in terms of ease of preparation. Bung it in the oven and you’re done.

The chocolate brownies are from British chef Adam Byatt. I like trying out simple recipes from haute-cuisine chefs to see how their knowledge and skills can improve something quite basic. He uses strong flour, normally reserved for bread-making and pasta, in his recipe. It’s tougher because it contains more gluten, but I think he uses it here because the amount is small (60 grams) and he wants to keep the structure and body of the cake with very little flour. Anyway, they tasted good and were easy to make, so we’ll go with that, then.

Aubergine involtini

Serves 4

250g ricotta

3 eggs

3 tbsp raisins

4 tbsp red-wine vinegar

75g flour

2 large aubergines,

300ml olive oil

Salt and pepper

200g mozzarella

50g grated Parmesan

Tomato sauce

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

2 tins of tomatoes

1 tbsp caster sugar

Few sprigs of thyme

Salt and pepper

Splash of olive oil

Mix the ricotta with one of the eggs and set this aside. Mix the other two eggs with a tablespoon of water and set them aside. Soak the raisins in the red-wine vinegar and set them aside too. Season the flour with lots of salt and pepper and put it on a plate. Slice the aubergine from top to bottom into one-centimetre-thick slices.

Heat up about a third of the olive oil in a large frying pan and when it is hot, dip the aubergine slices into the egg and then the flour and carefully lower them into the frying pan. Do this in batches, using the rest of the oil as necessary, and fry until they are golden brown. Season again when they are in the frying pan. Drain each batch on kitchen paper.

Meanwhile, get the tomato sauce started, simply by simmering the ingredients together and reduce until thick and tasty, which should take about 15-20 minutes. Be careful the sugar does not burn. Keep an eye on it and give it the occasional stir.

When the aubergines are cool enough to handle, mix together the ricotta with the drained currants. Cut the mozzarella into thick chips. Spoon a blob of the ricotta mix on to an aubergine slice and add a stick of mozzarella and roll them up. Place them in a gratin dish and either top them with the tomato sauce and Parmesan and bake straight away, or you can leave them in the fridge, covered with cling film, and when you’re ready to cook, spoon the cold tomato sauce over them, sprinkle some Parmesan on top, and then bake.

Bake at 170 degrees/gas mark three for about 25 minutes until they are golden brown and bubbling. Slug some more olive oil on it when it comes out of the oven, along with plenty more black pepper and some chopped flat-leaf parsley.

Adam Byatt’s Brownies

Makes 12

250g dark chocolate

250g butter

80g cocoa powder

60g ‘tipo OO’ flour (strong flour)

1 tsp baking powder

350g caster sugar

5 eggs, beaten

Line a 30cm x 20cm x 4cm tin with parchment paper. Preheat an oven to 200 degrees/gas mark six.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over simmering water and let it cool slightly.

Sieve all the powdered ingredients together, then add the sugar and mix.

When the chocolate has cooled slightly, whisk in the beaten eggs. When well mixed, fold the chocolate into the dry ingredients. Mix until there are no lumps, pour into the prepared tin and bake for 20-25 minutes until the middle is just setting. Allow to cool in the tin, then lift out and slice. You can freeze these individually, and I think they taste better straight from the fridge as they are so much fudgier.

See also itsa.ie