‘This Was a Revelation in Cooking Eggplant'
A reader-favorite (and me-favorite) eggplant dish
A tomato salad for that nice tinned fish you picked up
Plus, strawberry and sesame swirl soft serve
'This was a revelation in cooking eggplant'
By Mia Leimkuhler
It's hit that time of the summer when, if I'm at the farmers' market and standing in front of a table heaped high with baskets of eggplant, I must tell myself the same thing my mom told me in front of the supermarket candy display: just one.
If I don't, I run the risk of bringing home too much eggplant. The shiny, almost black Italian eggplant. The lavender-smudged Rosa Bianca eggplant, as bulbous and knuckly as the heirloom tomatoes. The long, slim Chinese and Japanese eggplants, the adorable fairytale eggplant. I want all the eggplants, but they won't all fit in my bike panniers (of course I've tried).
So this week it'll just be some Japanese eggplant for Sue Li's five-star sweet and sour eggplant with garlic chips. (I've also made this with larger eggplant varieties; just cut them into slenderish batons.)
If you're not so into eggplant — or you're cooking for the eggplant-avoidant — this recipe is a great place to start your eggplant journey. Any lingering bitterness is completely canceled out by the pungent garlic oil and the assertive soy-vinegar sauce that's sweetened with brown sugar. And the garlic chips (the tasty result of that garlic oil) add a solid crunch to counter the eggplant's melting softness.
I usually eat this dish with rice and a fried egg, but it's occurring to me now that, for a really nice dinner, I could serve it as a side to a roast duck I pick up from an Asian grocer. Oh, or a plate of pan-fried dumplings, also snagged from said grocer. Maybe some cold, fresh tofu? More reasons to leave room in the panniers.
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