comfort food..

I guess the last post gave some energy to overcome the inertia of not posting for such a long time.. Just a few days ago, dashing through the snow.. (not in a open sleigh) to the supermarket to pick up "any veg will do" for dinner, I chanced upon a pile of beautiful, plump, purple eggplants -  2 for 99c! Who would have thought to get such summer bounty in midwinter?
Grabbed 2 and gleefully drove up the hill, past semi trailer trucks floundering in the slushy snow. So thankful for 4WD.

But, this is a food blog, so back to my eggplants. I've cooked the first using a recipe that I've used over and over because it is so simple and the result is (IMHO) rather yummy. I use dehydrated onion and garlic for the garnish because they crisp up super fast

(Steamed) Eggplant drizzled with soy sauce & sesame oil

Ingredients:

• 1 large eggplant
• coarse salt - several teaspoons
• dehyrdrated onion flakes 1-2 tsp
• dehyrdrated minced garlic 1 tsp
• soy sauce 1 Tabsp
• sesame oil 1 tsp
• peanut oil 2 Tabsp

Method

1. Cut the eggplant into longitudinal strips about 2cm wide (some prefer to peel the skin, but I'm lazy and I don't)
2. Sprinkle salt over the eggplant and make sure all the cut surfaces are coated with salt
3. Leave aside for 15min or until the cut surfaces of the eggplant start weeping
4. Rinse off all the salt and gently squeeze the strips 
5. Place in heatproof dish and either steam till tender or microwave, covered for about 5-8minutes
6. Drizzle with soy sauce and sesame oil
7. Heat the peanut oil in a small saucepan and when the oil is hot, add the dehydrated garlic and onion and fry till brown - watch carefully - they brown and burn very easily
8. Pour hot oil and onion/garlic over hot eggplant - the sizzle is very satisfying!