That Japanese broiled eggplant with miso is to die for. I had that at a Japanese restaurant in Maui once and it made me weak in the knees. Also in Maui at another place, I ordered a whole roasted eggplant as an entree, just because it came with toasted chickpeas and I love toasted chickpeas. The eggplant was pretty damn good too.
Mark Bittman had a recipe in the Times once for “eggplant taverna style” or something like that. It is basically four ingredients—Italian eggplant, tomatoes, basil and olive oil—and it’s amazing. You cut the eggplant into long strips (with the skin on), saute them in olive oil until they’re a little caramelized, and then throw in raw chopped tomatoes. Let them cook down, add some basil, S&P and that’s it. It is fabulous over pasta and so easy that I make it all the time.
Thick slices of eggplant (cutlets) cut lengthwise
dip in Flour, egg, breadcrumbs
fry in olive oil or oven fry/bake
top with a parm curl
if there are any left by the time you are done frying, serve over arugula with lemon wedges.
Yes! So delicious & upthread I mentioned that we subbed toasted sesame oil for the peanut oil. Other than that we followed the recipe & garnished with the green parts of scallions.
Well, there are two problems here: First of all, I don’t have any on hand. I made this dish twice recently and probably won’t make it again for a couple of weeks. The second problem is that I don’t have a smartphone. I suppose I could take a photo with my normal cell phone, but I don’t really have any experience there. Once I took a photo of a loaf of bread that I had made, and it took me an hour to get up on the site. The file was simply too big. So I reduced it and reduced it and reduced it till it was just 5% of the size of the original jpg file. At that size I could post it, but the color was off, and the bread looked green!
I think nowadays you don’t have to worry about the bandwidth. In the past (a few months ago), I downsized my camera photos with an app on the phone to keep them small when uploading it to here. These days, I just upload directly without changing sizes. One thing I notice, the last HO update seems to resize the picts automatically, zooming is disabled now.
I was thinking maybe the restaurants was closed, maybe it’s old TripAdvisor account of the restaurant has the photo of the dish?
I’ve made it at home from who knows what recipe i found online- it was surprisingly easy! Just baking the eggplant until tender and then adding a mix of white miso and some kind of sweetner with sesame oil +- a few other ingredients before broiling
IME, you can fudge with the Stirfried Roasted Eggplant ingredients. You need SOME kind of thick soy, like hoisin sauce or bean paste. I’ve used thick teriyaki sauce, which reduced with some extra cooking time. Canned whole or diced tomatoes, drained, can replace the paste and chopped. I rarely have fresh ginger on hand, but pickled substitutes nicely.
Ooh, good to know, thanks! I’ll have to poke through the (growing) asian condiment assortment i have and see what would work. Strangely enough i always have fresh ginger on hand (for my kombucha)
Greygarious, out of frustration (can’t get my act together at the grocery) I started freezing fresh ginger & just chopping bits off the frozen. I’m not sure I can taste degeneration. Have you tried? Just wondering. It might be good enough for chicken soup but not adequate for other dishes.
I HAVE frozen ginger but it gets lost among other Unidentified Frozen Objects until the baggie/container is more frost than knob. Refrigerated, the pickled sliced ginger lasts indefinitely, and I actually prefer its flavor to fresh.
Ha, a throwdown would be perfect! Anyway, I think the dishes would be similar, but the smokey flavor from the mozz and the raw tomatoes would give a slightly different flavor and texture profile. But fresh mozz and eggplant together would be awesome!
When I was a child, my grandfather would quickly saute rounds of asian eggplant, then marinate it for a while in oil, white vinegar, and enough chopped garlic to slay a family of vampires. It was incredibly sharp, garlicky and sour. I used to eat it between slices of baguette. Loved it.
