Time for some Ukrainian food recipe. And since eggplants are in season, I want to share with you my favorite way to use them. Eggplant caviar. This is a literal translation of how we call it in Ukraine. But it has nothing to do with real caviar. Do not panic and keep reading 😉

What is Ukrainian eggplant caviar anyway? Honestly hard to tell. I don’t know which category it is. Is it an eggplant dip? Is it an eggplant appetizer? Or eggplant spread? Don’t know. We serve it as it is and any time of the day or occasion. Most of the time once it is on the table it is finished within an hour. We like to eat it either as an eggplant dip with chips and crispy flatbread or as an eggplant spread on fresh sourdough. The choice is always yours.

The Russian and Ukrainian cuisine is very similar. And as in any cuisine, there is always a family twist on any recipe. There is no THE ONE recipe for anything. Everyone does it differently. I have always been making my mom and grandma recipes. But since I started the blog, the pressure rose, and I need to be 100% sure that I’m posting the best Ukrainian recipes. Because I want you to taste authentic Ukrainian food and fall in love with it. So I cheated couple times on my mom’s recipe thinking there will be something better. But NO. Every time the experiment proves that indeed my mom’s recipes are the best. Is it a fair judgment? Don’t know. But I firmly believe in it.

So this eggplant caviar is our family recipe except for one adjustment. The broiling part. We didn’t have a broil option, so we roasted the eggplant. With broiler, I find it faster and it if you leave it for a little longer it will burn the skin slightly and will add the smoky flavor to it. So now I only make it with the broiling method, and I love it.

The rest in the recipe remains the same.

All you need is roast eggplants and chop everything together. If you have a food process – great! Put everything there and pulse to desired consistency. If you don’t have it – no worries. Do it the old-fashioned way. Chop everything with a chef knife. That is it.  That’s how easy it is.

The only thing I should mention is sunflower oil. Authentically speaking it is necessary. Ukraine is a significant producer of sunflower oil, so it is our primary oil we use. I made this eggplant spread many times with olive oil as well. The taste definitely differs.  But not in a  bad way. For me adding sunflower oil is a nostalgic thing, it tastes like home. If you cannot find a good unrefined sunflower oil, then use extra virgin olive oil instead. But if you want to taste authentic Ukrainian eggplant dip the sunflower oil is a must. Plus, sunflower oil is delicious, and you can use it in many other recipes.

As you can see this is super easy eggplant recipe to make. If you like eggplants and always wondered what to make with them, then try this roasted eggplant dip recipe. It may become your go-to eggplant recipe.

And please do share your thoughts about it. Posting authentic Ukrainian food is a challenging thing. I would appreciate if you post comments if this is go or pass recipe.

Roasted Eggplant Dip Tips and Tricks:

• Don’t forget to poke eggplant all over. Otherwise, you may end up with eggplant explosion.
• Cooking eggplant under the broiler is the easiest and fastest way. If you don’t have broiler bake in 400 F oven for 30 minutes (less or more, depending on the eggplant size).
• The authentic way is to use sunflower oil. If you don’t have it, use extra virgin olive instead.
• Try to use the best tomatoes you can find. They really shine here.
• You may substitute parsley for cilantro.
• The dip gets better with time. Try to make it overnight and enjoy it the next day.
• Can be stored in the fridge up to a week.

If you make this recipe, please share your picture with me by tagging it #thepuretaste on Instagram. Or share your results in the comment section down below. It means a whole world to me knowing someone is making my recipes.

Thank you for sharing and support ❤️❤️❤️

Maria

Yields: about 2 cups

Easy Roasted Eggplant Dip – Ukrainian Eggplant Caviar

Roasted eggplant dip recipe called eggplant caviar in Russian and Ukrainian cuisine

15 minPrep Time

30 minCook Time

45 minTotal Time

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Ingredients:

• 2 medium (about 2 pounds) eggplants
• 1 large tomato
• 1 large garlic clove, chopped
• 3 tablespoons red onion, chopped
• 3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
• 3 tablespoons sunflower or extra virgin olive oil
• 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions:

Set the broiler on high. Wash and dry eggplants. Line baking sheet with foil. Carefully poke eggplants with a knife. Rub in oil. Broil for 10 minutes per side or until they flatten and have slightly burned skin (see pictures). Total time depends on the eggplant’s size. Mine took 25 minutes. Let cool. Alternatively, roast in 400 F oven for 30 minutes (less or more, depending on the eggplant size).

To make in a food processor:

Cut tomato in half. Gently squeeze the juice out. Cut into small pieces and add to food processor. When eggplants are safe to handle, remove the skin. With a small knife scrape the rest of the eggplant from the skin. Add to food processor along with chopped garlic, red onion, parsley, salt, and pepper. Pulse couple of times. Scrape the sides and add oil. Pulse to desired consistency. Taste and adjust seasoning.

To make by hand:

Cut tomato in half. Gently squeeze the juice out. Chop with a chef knife and place in a medium bowl. When eggplants are safe to handle, remove the skin. With a small knife scrape the rest of the eggplant from the skin. Chop and add it to a bowl along with chopped garlic, red onion, parsley, sunflower oil, salt, and pepper. Mix everything. Taste and adjust seasoning.

If you can, let it develop flavors overnight in the fridge. If not, serve with chips, pita bread or any other favorite flatbread.

Can be refrigerated up to a week.

Tags

Diet

vegetarian

Paleo

Vegan

Whole 30

Nutrition

Calories

396 cal

Fat

42 g

Carbs

4 g

Protein

1 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

55

https://thepuretaste.com/roasted-eggplant-dip/

Maria | The Pure Taste

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which collects some cookies.  If you purchase a product through one of my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products that I use and love myself. Thank you in advance for your support! It means a lot!

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This is my final recipe for the rotisserie chicken project. When I started the project, Rotisserie chicken nachos was the first recipe on my list. I had to include it. I make it so often that it would be unfair to leave it out of the project.

I just love nachos. This is the simplest way to put it. I don’t know what’s not to like. Corn chips are good. Cheese is good. Chicken is good. Top it with fresh and fragrant add-ons like cilantro, red onion, jalapeno and you have a fiesta at home anytime you want.

Nachos are pretty frequent guest in our apartment. I make it for friends to snack on and warm up the conversation. For Mexican food days. For soccer games. Or simply when I need the day off in the middle of the week.

We all have days during the week when you want to take a break, have a day-off or at least part of the day and have something special. This is what happened to me this Monday. I just couldn’t make myself to work. So I made a deal. I will do two things from a to-do list and will spend the rest of a day with nachos, beer, and soccer. So it happened.

It took me about 7 minutes to prep everything for nachos. 5 minutes to make homemade salsa. After 15 minutes both my husband and I were sitting with a glass of cold beer savoring colorful homemade nachos and salsa watching soccer. Barcelona vs. Roma. What a game!

Thinks about it. Most of the time you have corn chips in your kitchen pantry, and maybe some cheese. If you are lucky enough, you have the rest of ingredients.  If you don’t, head over to a grocery store, buy the rest of ingredients and make nachos to add some fiesta to your day!

All you need to do is layer all ingredients. Bake it to melt the cheese. Top it with your favs, and you have the easiest shredded chicken nachos to brighten the day.

This time I used hot sauce to make buffalo chicken nachos recipe. You can use your favorite BBQ sauce to make bbq chicken nachos. The cooking instruction is the same. So use whatever sauce you prefer or have on hand.

Also, I lightened up it a bit by removing cheese sauce to make healthy chicken nachos. Well, not healthy but healthy-ish since it is still loaded with cheese but without extra unnecessary calories from flour and milk. All you need is enough cheese to glue everything together. For that reason, cheese sauce is needless here.

Now you know how to make easy shredded chicken nachos at home. This is a quick and easy Mexican food you can serve for any occasion, at any time of the day to bring good vibes and mood to your party.

Happy Cooking!

Tips and Tricks for Rotisserie Chicken Nachos:

1. I usually buy white corn chips because they are slightly healthier than yellow. My second choice is the blend of white and yellow.
2. I stopped buying canned corn a VERY long time ago. The frozen tastes much better and it is convenient portion wise. Take how much you need and return the rest to a freezer.
3. The best way to bring frozen corn back to life: Bring water to a full boil. Remove from heat. Add frozen corn. Wait for 3 minutes. Drain and enjoy. The simple but crucial process that helps corn retain the color and sweetness.
4. I find making cheese sauce for nachos time consuming and unhealthy. I use plain shredded cheese to glue everything together. Works all the time.
5. I recently discovered Louisiana’s Pure Crystal hot sauce and in love with it. It has only three plain ingredients, and it tastes a lot better than famous hot sauces. Highly recommend.
6. You can substitute hot sauce for bbq or any other favorite sauce.

Previous recipes from the 5 Easy Recipes with a leftover rotisserie chicken project:

1. Rotisserie chicken enchiladas with a simple enchilada sauce
2. Smoky Rotisserie Chicken Soup with corn & tomatoes (Simple & Healthy)
3. Buffalo rotisserie chicken calzone
4. Rotisserie Chicken Wrap with Greek Yogurt Dressing

If you make this recipe, please share your picture with me by tagging it #thepuretaste on Instagram. Or share your results in the comment section down below. It means a whole world to me knowing someone is making my recipes.

Thank you for sharing and support ❤️❤️❤️

Maria

Yields: 1 baking sheet

Quick and Easy Rotisserie Chicken Nachos

7 minPrep Time

15 minCook Time

22 minTotal Time

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Ingredients:

• Bag of Tortilla corn chips
• 2 cups Mexican style shredded cheese
• 2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken (or cooked shredded chicken)
• ½ cup hot sauce (Louisiana’s Pure Crystal hot sauce)
• ½ cup corn (canned or frozen)
• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1/3 cup red onion, chopped
• 1 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, diced
• 1 avocado, cubed
• ½ cup sour cream
• More hot sauce for serving
• Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cover baking sheet with parchment paper.

Scatter the corn chips on a parchment paper, overlapping is OK. Sprinkle 1 cup of shredded cheese. Top with shredded chicken. Pour hot sauce evenly over the chicken. Sprinkle with the rest of shredded cheese, cooked corn and red pepper flakes. Bake for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, prep the toppings. Chop red onion, cilantro, jalapeno, and avocado.

Remove nachos from the oven. Sprinkle with toppings and serve immediately.

Serve with sour cream and more hot sauce.

Enjoy!

Tags

Courses

Appetizer

Lunch

Cuisines

American

Mexican

Cooking

Baking

Nutrition

Calories

1292 cal

Fat

93 g

Carbs

29 g

Protein

103 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

41

https://thepuretaste.com/rotisserie-chicken-nachos/

Maria | The Pure Taste

 Disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links.  If you purchase a product through one of my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products that I use and love myself. Thank you in advance for your support! It means a lot!

Products used in this post:

Nordic Ware Half Sheet Pan

Have you already planned the most romantic holiday of the year? I think I did. It will be intimate, quiet, romantic evening with wine, Antipasto platter, Panna Cotta, and movie.

We usually go out to a good restaurant for Valentine’s Day or buy concert or show tickets as a gift for both of us. But one year Valentine’s Day was in the middle of the week, and we both were so tired that week. We decided to skip going out and stayed at home. I was not in the mood to cook any special dinner, and we both agreed to put together antipasto platter, some appetizers, and simple dessert. And let me tell you that was one of the relaxed Valentine’s Day ever. This year the 14^th of February is Tuesday, and I have a feeling we will end up with the same plan. I want to share with you some ideas on how to celebrate Valentine’s Day at home and how to make a perfect antipasto platter to celebrate it.

I always feel like the antipasto board is a perfect appetizer for special occasions. It is simple, yet fancy, delicious, and sexy. Sounds like a natural choice for the romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner. The feeling of eating together, taking the food from one platter, discussing what tastes better with the wine, listening to music creates the connection that is hard to make in the restaurant. None of the restaurants can make you feel as relaxed and natural as you feel at home. Plus, there are so many other additions you can make, like an expensive wine or champagne, the music YOU love, burning as many candles as you wish, the snuggling on the sofa, watching the romantic movie, and of course polishing all of this with a dessert.

For casual dinners like this, I always stick to easy and simple dessert like Panna Cotta. You can use this Panna Cotta base and leave it either pure vanilla or top with anything you want from fresh berries to any sweet sauce.

Regarding the antipasto platter, you can create it with ANYTHING you want.  This antipasto platter is just an inspiration and an idea.

My Tips and Tricks on How to Make a Perfect Antipasto Platter:

1. Keep things different and exciting. In case someone doesn’t eat pork, then offer beef salami or pastrami. The same with the cheese, if someone prefers soft cheese over the hard offer both varieties, so everyone has something to enjoy.
2. Buy a good, seasonal and unusual spread, marmalade or jam. You can find it now everywhere. I usually buy mine at a good price at Marshalls, TJ MAX, Ocean State Job Lot. It is winter outside so for me Orange Marmalade is a winner for this antipasti platter.
3. Take a good care of the bready part: crackers, sticks, bread, etc. I usually buy artisanal dark or whole-wheat bread. Thinly slice it and brown slightly in the oven or under the broiler. The good-quality crackers are also a good thing.
4. Olives are must for me on any the antipasto platter. This is the time when better to spend a little more on olives. Nothing spoils the antipasto platter more than cheap canned olives.
5. I usually add something made by me to antipasto board, and this time it was marinated goat cheese in extra virgin olive oil with herbs. This is optional, but it adds more interest.

Now, the music. It’s obviously the personal preference. For me, Jazz is a sexy love song. Among my favorites are Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Club Des Belugas. Here is a cool playlist The 15 Jazz Love Songs for inspiration.

Then we slowly move to a couch of course with more wine and watch a romantic movie. Such a tough choice on the movie. If Jazz is the perfect love music, then an old classic movie will set the perfect tone for a romantic evening. Among my favorites are Great Gatsby, Roman Holiday, Casablanca. If you are not up for a classic movie, no worries. There are a whole bunch of good modern movies like Notebook, You’ve got mail, Sleepless is Seattle, Notting Hill, Ghost and so much more.

My Plan for The Perfect Romantic Valentine’s Day:

Food: Antipasto board and chicken liver pate.

Dessert: Panna cotta or Zebra Cake

Drinks: Pinot Noir or Cabernet Sauvignon

Music: Jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Club Des Belugas) or Sting

Movie: I think I will stick to Notting Hill or You’ve got mail. Not my 1^st choice but have to consider my husband’s preferences.

Don’t get me wrong; I do not discourage you from going out to a restaurant or plan surprise romantic dinner for your loved one. So far, January has been very busy for us, and I just want to slow things down and share an evening with my husband.

Eating from one plate cured meat, olives, cheeses and drinking a good wine call me old fashioned but it feels so authentic and sexy. No matter how you will plan your Valentine’s Day the most important thing is to say out loud how much you love your partner.

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” 

― Sophocles

Happy Valentine’s Day to all people who carry the love in their hearts ❤❤❤.

Love,

Masha

Yields: 2+ servings, depending on the amount of ingredients

How to Make Perfect Antipasto Platter

20 minPrep Time

20 minTotal Time

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Ingredients:

For the Antipasti Board:
• Any soft cheeses: mozzarella, brie, camembert, SCHLOSS
• Any semi-Hard cheeses: BABY SWISS, CHEDDAR, MANCHEGO, FONTINA, GOUDA, HAVARTI,
• Any hard cheeses: ASIAGO, ROMANO, COTIJA
• Seasonal Marmalade, Spread, or Jam
• Dry-cured or Water-cured Olives: KALAMATA, CASTELVETRANO, NIÇOISE, MANZANILLA, BELDI, AMFISSA, GAETA, Picholine
• Cured Meats: Capicola, Mortadella, Pancetta, Prosciutto, Salame, Sopressata
• Something bready: Crackers, bread sticks, pretzels or simply seedy bread thinly sliced and browned on both sides.
For the Marinated Herbed Goat Cheese:
• 4 oz. goat cheese
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, crushed but not chopped
• 1 tbsp. Fresh rosemary, chopped
• 1 tbsp. Fresh thyme, chopped
• 1 tbsp. Fresh sage, chopped
• ½ tsp. red pepper flakes

Instructions:

Marinated Goat Cheese:

Lightly grease your hands with olive oil and make small balls from the goat cheese. Place them in the container or a jar. In a small ball combine the rest of ingredients and pour everything over the balls. You can marinate it 1 week ahead. Keep refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

Antipasto platter:

Spread all the ingredients on the platter or board. Brown the thinly sliced bread.

Serve immediately.

7.8.1.2

18

https://thepuretaste.com/perfect-antipasto-platter/

Maria | The Pure Taste