Eggplant Panini, Asparagus

Dinner 2/07

Eggplant Panini

Asparagus

The cast-iron grill pan got a work out as we made a panini for dinner. Mesquite smoked eggplant was grilled and combined with Mozzarella Teese between two pieces of homemade ciabatta, slathered with Earth Balance.



Panini are all about timing. You want to get the nice grill marks quickly, without having the Teese melt completely. Right after this picture was taken, I placed another hot cast-iron pan on top of the sandwich. This weighs the panini down and begins to cook the top half of the bread and melt the Teese. Then the panini is rotated to get the grill marks. Finally, it's flipped over and you repeat the process.



At the end you can see that the Teese has melted, but hasn't liquefied yet...

The asparagus were cooked for 5 minutes in heavily salted water, drained and shocked in an ice bath and drained. They were finished in rolling around in some melted soy margarine, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Tags: eggplant, cast-iron, teese, asparagus, vegan, food, dinner, tofu666