- [Beryl] Although they may not all look the same, eggplants can be found all around the world.

Loved by many, detested by some, the eggplant can be transformed into something spectacular with the right recipe.

- Can you see that?

It's sweating.

- [Beryl] My name is Beryl and this show explores how our foods can bring our different cultures together.

And this is our eggplant episode.

- I painted my nails yesterday so that it would match the eggplant.

- [Beryl] I wore earrings to match the eggplant.

- Great minds think alike.

- Today I am swapping my favorite eggplant dish with Tiffany.

Tiffany will make my Sicilian melanzane 'mbuttunate and I will make a Vietnamese steamed eggplant dish with fresh scallion oil.

Depending on how dirty your recipe sheet is after you've cooked is how hard you went.

This is good.

As an eggplant lover myself, this episode is right up my alley.

Let's get cooking.

(bright music) I'm gonna see Tiffany's note to me.

- Dear Beryl, my name is Tiffany and today you're going to be making Vietnamese steamed eggplant with scallion oil.

In Vietnamese, it's called ca tim hap mo hanh.

I currently live in Brooklyn, but my parents are from Vietnam.

This dish is also representative of the common flavors found in Vietnamese food.

- Okay, so we are gonna be making a steamed eggplant.

- [Tiffany] It's salty, it's a little bit sweet, a little bit sour and spicy.

- I'm wearing my eggplant earrings in celebration of Tiffany's dish.

- [Tiffany] This dish reminds me of my mom.

She made it with love and she wasn't the best with words, but this was her way to express how much she loved us.

- I don't often cook with Chinese eggplants.

I usually cook with the larger Italian eggplants.

And it's always cool to see the variations within one kind of species, that this looks really different, but I think the flavor is pretty similar.

Okay, to make the dressing, combine the dressing ingredients in a small bowl.

It should be a mix of sweet, sour, and a little spicy.

Okay, easy.

- [Tiffany] I remember that she would chop up several scallions, season it with salt and sugar and oil, and then she microwaved it.

And that just like blew my mind.

I was like, wow, this is how she made her scallion oil.

- For the scallion oil, Tiffany recommended I use a microwave.

I don't actually have space for a microwave in my New York City apartment, so we're just gonna do it the old fashioned way on the stove top, waiting for the oil to smoke a little, and then making the scallion oil that way.

- One thing I would look out for is monitoring the eggplant.

It can be overcooked if you steam it for a bit too long, so it helps to line up the eggplant skin side down, making sure that it's not overcrowded so that it could cook evenly.

I would recommend using a chopstick to check if it's ready.

- We're gonna test like Tiffany said with my chopstick that it should go through.

Yes.

- [Tiffany] To me, food is a culmination of identity, cultural heritage, values and beliefs.

I don't want to lose sight of that, so making this eggplant dish is just one way that allows me to connect to my heritage.

I know people either love or hate eggplant because of the texture, but I truly think that this recipe could convince eggplant skeptics to at least appreciate it and then, hopefully, eventually celebrate it.

- [Beryl] Everything looks better once you add crispy shallots.

Yummy!

- [Tiffany] Beryl, I hope this dish inspires you for the next time you're craving eggplant and that you enjoy it as much as I do.

Love, Tiffany.

- Yay.

This honestly looks really beautiful.

I'm just gonna go in immediately.

(bright music) That eggplant just, like, melts in your mouth.

I don't know if I've ever had eggplant this soft.

Tiffany was not kidding about it being so buttery.

Whoa.

It has so many contrasting flavors from the spiciness of the chili and the sweetness from the sugar, the soy sauce giving it a bit of saltiness and umaminess.

And then the eggplant itself just has that, like, kind of rich flavor to it.

And it was just steamed.

So used to roasting eggplant.

Overall, this was really easy to make, like the instructions were really clear and there was nothing that complicated.

Obviously I wanted to make sure that I cut the eggplant correctly, so I like double checked that.

For some reason this is not what I expected the dish was gonna look like.

I don't even know what I expected it was gonna.

I think I thought maybe it was gonna be discs.

I like that it's these kind of matchstick style cuts.

I think that's really interesting.

I did struggle a little bit with the water, which seems so silly in retrospect.

I don't know why I kept messing it up.

She's rattling in there.

Oh crap, there's too much water.

Oh my god, wait!

Just completely overflowed.

Okay.

Why is this the hardest part so far?

How much water?

I don't know how much water now.

I'm questioning everything.

I think sometimes with recipes, they can be a little bit intimidating because there's a bit of rigidness in like how something's supposed to taste, but I like that in Tiffany's recipe for the dressing, she said that, like, it should be to your taste.

And because I like things a little more sour, added a little bit more lime juice.

Tiffany said that you can adjust it.

I like things sour.

That's really good.

And Tiffany, I'm really excited for you to cook my recipe.

I hope you like it 'cause I loved yours.

(bright music) Hi, Tiffany.

My name is Beryl and today you're gonna be making an Italian dish called melanzane 'mbuttunate.

I was born and raised in New York, but I have two different cultural upbringings.

My father's side of the family are Polish Jews and my mother's side are Italian Catholics from Naples, Italy.

That really just means that I grew up with a lot of food and a lot of family dinners.

The dish is traditionally Sicilian, but I think that the common denominator here for all Italians is that we all love delicious food and this is delicious.

- Okay, there you go.

All right, that was not a perfect cut.

- The translation for this means button eggplant, but really what it is, is a type of stuffed and baked eggplant that is absolutely delicious.

When you're making this, there are things that you should pay close attention to.

When you're making your cuts, don't cut too deep.

- I think we have enough space in here.

Yeah, this looks good.

Well, let's not cut it too deep.

- [Beryl] Do not forget to salt the eggplant in the beginning.

It's very important.

- [Tiffany] And now let's salt this side.

- That is what's gonna make it soft enough so that you can stuff it easily.

- I feel like I'm abusing this eggplant.

- And inside, you're going to be stuffing a spiced breadcrumb mixture.

- Now we're going to combine the breadcrumbs with dill.

It's just so fragrant and it makes everything taste so much better.

- [Beryl] I think that the flavors between your Vietnamese dish and my Italian dish are going to be very different.

I think what's interesting about eggplant is that there are a lot of versions of it.

- Can you see that?

It's sweating.

- And it just shows that around the world, we might be speaking in a different language and we might be dressing in different clothing, but we're all eating eggplant.

- All right.

We're gonna stuff the eggplant with this breadcrumb mixture.

You really gotta jam it in there.

Beryl, does this look okay?

- [Beryl] You could get a little more in there.

- A little bit more?

- [Beryl] You can get a little more in there.

- [Tiffany] Okay.

- I grew up in a cooking household, so food and love have always been so connected for me.

So with you cooking my dish and me cooking your dish, it feels like something very personal.

When you put it in the oven, do not forget to cover it.

I've done that once and it doesn't turn out good.

You need the steam heat to work.

- I mean, this works, right?

I mean, the point is we're trying to, for the, it steams inside - [Beryl] And when you bake this stuffed eggplant with all of these sliced cherry tomatoes, all of the liquid from everything kind of cooks down together and all of the flavors meld and create something that is much bigger than the sum of its parts.

- Set a timer for 40 minutes.

- And it really transforms the eggplant from something that can sometimes be boring into something that I think is extraordinary.

- Oh my god, this looks amazing.

- [Beryl] Tiffany, when you try this dish, I hope that the eggplant is soft, everything is warm, and you just can kind of relax and enjoy the flavors 'cause it's a very comforting dish to eat.

Good luck.

Love, Beryl.

- I'm so ready to eat.

Ooh.

(bright music) Oh my god.

Mm.

Okay, I'm gonna take another bite.

That's really good.

The eggplant is definitely the star of this dish.

It just makes me, like, love and appreciate eggplant even more.

It's such a good balance of everything.

The acidity from the tomatoes and, like, just a little bit of like the cheese.

Ugh.

I might add some soy sauce to it.

You know?

The recipe that you gave me, there was no measurements.

There's no measurements in here.

I feel like this is like what my mom would do.

She just wouldn't tell me like how much.

- [Beryl] You gotta cook on vibes, you know?

- I eventually reached that point, but at the beginning I was like, oh, what do I do?

Generous pour of EVOO.

Extra-virgin olive oil.

Okay.

I didn't grow up eating a lot of Italian food and the times that I would eat Italian food was large portions, heavy cream, heavy cheese.

This eggplant dish taught me that, no, like, you know, we don't need to go that far.

It can be just simple and we only used like what?

Like less than 10 ingredients?

That's something that like really changed my perspective on, like, Italian food.

I like to put the tomatoes in between, like, two pieces.

- [Beryl] Lemme try one.

- [Tiffany] Okay.

- Lemme just try one.

Never in my life.

- Just be careful.

- Thanks, Mom.

- Nice.

You did it.

- Wait!

- Yeah.

- I didn't believe it.

I did not believe it.

- It allowed me to kind of learn more about you, Beryl.

- I snagged myself a plate so I can see how Tiffany did.

Drum roll, Tiffany.

You did great.

- Yeah.

- Oh, it's really good.

(bright music) I hope you enjoyed this episode of Pan Pals.

Let me know in the comments what is your favorite eggplant dish from your country.

And if you like home cooking, then you will love the new season of "The Great American Recipe."

The show features eight talented home cooks in a competition that celebrates the diversity and flavors of foods across the U.S. You can watch the first episode here on the PBS Food YouTube channel and check out the rest of the season every week on the PBS app and on your local PBS station.

Check it out in the links and in the description.