yummy eggplant

At the farm stand yesterday, I couldn't resist three tiny baby eggplants. They were so cute! And purple! Suddenly I wanted yu-siang (sp?) eggplant -- that tangy, sweet, salty dish that's sometimes actually good. Mr. P has a huge Chinese cookbook which I consulted and tried to follow (I'm not all that great at precisely following recipes ). To the recipe, I added onion (actually, a huge gorgeous organic onion from last week's farm run), which I sauteed and set aside. Then I cut up eggplant rectangles and sauteed them on fairly high heat for a while. The recipe called for two cups of oil (YOOOWWW) and I did use more oil than I usually do, but not nearly that much. I cooked the eggplants until tasty and not overcooked.

You remove the eggplants from the heat, and in very quick succession cook minced garlic and ginger, add eggplant, toss, add a sugar-soy mixture, combine, stir in some vinegar, let it steam off, and at that point, I removed it from the heat and added toasted sesame oil and topped with chopped scallions.

We served it on rice with, what else, a side of salad (including some homemade mozzarella, not made in this home).

It was delicious, certainly not bad for a first attempt. The only thing I'd add on the second attempt would be something spicy -- Chinese pepper, chili sauce, or hot oil. But otherwise, wow. I didn't know I could make that.

The farm supplies from last week are almost gone, except for a huge pile of cucumbers and a smaller pile of carrots, and a few odds and ends. Maybe we'll have raita tomorrow night, which might require us to cook something containing paneer, which implies something curried. We'll see what we pick up at the farm and go from there. If cauliflower, then it'll be easy to add a couple of potatoes, maybe some peas, paneer, spices, and we'd call it a meal.