Berenjenitas en dulce (Moroccan Candied Baby Eggplant)
Moroccan candied eggplants are a post-Passover treat, laid out on a groaning table of sweets for the celebration of Mimouna. The last time I tasted them was in a Moroccan Jewish home in the Musrara quarter of Jerusalem in 1984 — and the flavor lingered. Poaching the baby eggplants in sugar syrup turns them into something besides a vegetable, and other than candy. The spice mixture — ginger, cinnamon, cloves, allspice — makes them intensely fragrant as well.
Ingredients
- 25 baby eggplants as small as possible
- 1.5 kilos (7-1/2 cups) sugar
- 500 grams (1-1/2 cups) honey
- crushed fresh ginger (according to taste)
- 8 cloves
- 1 stick of cinnamon
- a few grains of allspice
Instructions
- Poke the raw eggplants all over with a fork.
- Put them in a (large, heavy, enamel) casserole, cover with cold water and add the sugar.
- Boil for 10 minutes, lower the flame and simmer for 2 or 3 hours over a low flame.
- Remove from the heat.
- Make a (little sack) with a fine cloth or gauze and put in all the spices. Add the spices and half the honey to the casserole and return it to the flame.
- When the pot begins to boil, lower the flame and simmer over a low flame for 2 or 3 hours.
- Add the rest of the honey. The eggplants have to cook for another 2 or 3 hours more, until they turn very dark.
Notes
The recipe below comes from from Dulce lo vivas/ Live Sweet: La Reposteria Sefardi by Ana Bensadon, which is also the source of my go-to olive pil chocolate mousse dessert.
How do you eat these eggplants? With a cup of mint tea and a pile of Meme Suissa's Anise Biscuits.
