Sous Vide Eggplant Fondue with Eggplant Croquant Recipe

I've often thought about the early days of the French Laundry cookbook and how it shaped my way of thinking. By no means is it a holy grail of a book; it certainly has its flaws. I mostly admire and draw from the stories and anecdotal sections of recipes like these. There's a section that references cooking eggplant low and slow until it forms a fondue like texture. That line was the single point of inspiration for this technique.

We learned a version of the Croquant technique when chef Paul Liebrandt came and did a pop-up at CVI. He's a remarkable chef with unbelievable raw talent. There was a crispy eggplant wafer with chocolate ice cream and a spice from laBoîte NYC called appalonia. This recipe has been streamlined and stripped down for efficiencies.

Want more like this? Our comprehensive book Champions of Sous Vide is a great collection of more than 70 sous vide recipes from two dozen top sous vide cooks.