Recipe for Chinese Eggplant and Confusion
Feb. 16th, 2005 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaks1. Drift around kitchen grinning like an idiot (see previous entry today). Cut ends off and peel a very, very large eggplant.
2. Realize that peeling eggplant would be much more efficient if enough attention were being paid to ensure that the blade side of the peeler touches the eggplant.
3. Slice eggplant into very thin rounds. Somehow fail to slice fingers, despite all laws of probability.
5. Stack eggplant in saucepan and cover with hot water; pour in salt until there is precipitate. Realize that pan is too large and eggplant is floating; concoct emergency eggplant-weighting system out of miscellaneous household objects.
4. Melt six tablespoons butter.
5. Slowly stir flour into butter, a teaspoon at a time, watching for signs of thickening, breaking up any lumps.
6. Pick foreign object out of mixture.
7. That's a weevil.
8. No, really, I know a weevil when I see one. It's still moving.
9. Tentatively and tremulously inspect flour container.
10. Whimper.
11. Whimper at housemates. Ask wife to go get a different kitchen's container of flour. She does.
12. The new container of flour does not have weevils. Experience brief microsecond of relief before reality intrudes.
13. It has ants.
14. Scream something along the lines of 'Get those things out of my flour', accompanied by gesticulations.
15. Third container of flour appears uninhabited. Fearing the worst, ask wife to inspect cornstarch.
16. Yup. Fail to summon energy to whimper.
17. Second box of cornstarch is fine, fortunately, as there is starting to be a sense of universal conspiracy about all this.
18. Also, we are out of eggs.
19. Throw out original, protein-enhanced butter solution, delegate dinner to Thrud, and watch Babylon 5.
... amazingly, my good mood appears to be entirely unshaken. Wow.
As the White Knight said to Alice, "It's my own invention".
All measurements are approximate: I cook by smell.
1 lb eggplant, Chinese or Italian, peeled and cut into rounds no thicker than 1/8th of an inch
at least twelve tablespoons salt
oil to fry in (olive, vegetable, safflower)
Breading:
at least twelve tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups white all-purpose flour
one egg
Sauce:
another four tablespoons butter
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon mirin
dash of soy sauce or miso paste in water
2 cloves garlic
optional: three tablespoons cream cheese
one tablespoon clover or other light honey may be used instead of mirin
dash chili oil or red pepper flakes
Put the eggplant in a saucepan large enough to hold it all at once, run hot water to cover, and salt the water until the salt precipitates a little, turning and mixing the eggplant with your hands as you salt it. Weight the eggplant with forks or other kitchen implements if it floats, put the lid on, and leave alone for at least ten minutes (fifteen is better).
While it's soaking, melt twelve tablespoons of butter. Beat in one egg. Add flour to the butter teaspoonful by teaspoonful, breaking up any lumps, until the breading is the consistency of a very thick sauce or a very light dough. This is never going to be a crispy breading, but it will absorb sauce well and compliment the eggplant.
Melt the rest of the butter, and stir in the sesame oil, the mirin or honey, the soy sauce or miso paste, and chili oil if you're using it. Taste. You want it sweet and salty, with a hint of sesame. Add two cloves garlic, put through a press or chopped extremely fine. Heat very slowly on the stove, adding cornstarch as a thickener until the sauce reaches your desired consistency. Do not burn cornstarch. It tastes odd. If you want a creamy sauce, melt the cream cheese into it here-- you may not need so much cornstarch. Take sauce off heat.
Pour off eggplant brine, rinsing each piece of eggplant thoroughly under a tap and patting dry with a towel. Rinse and dry saucepan. Heat oil until bubbles rise around a fork's tines placed in the middle. Dip eggplant in breading piece by piece and fry in oil until a fork easily penetrates the flesh. Drain on paper towels.
Serve with sauce. Serves seven as a side dish with pasta or rice; there will be leftovers.
2. Realize that peeling eggplant would be much more efficient if enough attention were being paid to ensure that the blade side of the peeler touches the eggplant.
3. Slice eggplant into very thin rounds. Somehow fail to slice fingers, despite all laws of probability.
5. Stack eggplant in saucepan and cover with hot water; pour in salt until there is precipitate. Realize that pan is too large and eggplant is floating; concoct emergency eggplant-weighting system out of miscellaneous household objects.
4. Melt six tablespoons butter.
5. Slowly stir flour into butter, a teaspoon at a time, watching for signs of thickening, breaking up any lumps.
6. Pick foreign object out of mixture.
7. That's a weevil.
8. No, really, I know a weevil when I see one. It's still moving.
9. Tentatively and tremulously inspect flour container.
10. Whimper.
11. Whimper at housemates. Ask wife to go get a different kitchen's container of flour. She does.
12. The new container of flour does not have weevils. Experience brief microsecond of relief before reality intrudes.
13. It has ants.
14. Scream something along the lines of 'Get those things out of my flour', accompanied by gesticulations.
15. Third container of flour appears uninhabited. Fearing the worst, ask wife to inspect cornstarch.
16. Yup. Fail to summon energy to whimper.
17. Second box of cornstarch is fine, fortunately, as there is starting to be a sense of universal conspiracy about all this.
18. Also, we are out of eggs.
19. Throw out original, protein-enhanced butter solution, delegate dinner to Thrud, and watch Babylon 5.
... amazingly, my good mood appears to be entirely unshaken. Wow.
As the White Knight said to Alice, "It's my own invention".
All measurements are approximate: I cook by smell.
1 lb eggplant, Chinese or Italian, peeled and cut into rounds no thicker than 1/8th of an inch
at least twelve tablespoons salt
oil to fry in (olive, vegetable, safflower)
Breading:
at least twelve tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups white all-purpose flour
one egg
Sauce:
another four tablespoons butter
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon mirin
dash of soy sauce or miso paste in water
2 cloves garlic
optional: three tablespoons cream cheese
one tablespoon clover or other light honey may be used instead of mirin
dash chili oil or red pepper flakes
Put the eggplant in a saucepan large enough to hold it all at once, run hot water to cover, and salt the water until the salt precipitates a little, turning and mixing the eggplant with your hands as you salt it. Weight the eggplant with forks or other kitchen implements if it floats, put the lid on, and leave alone for at least ten minutes (fifteen is better).
While it's soaking, melt twelve tablespoons of butter. Beat in one egg. Add flour to the butter teaspoonful by teaspoonful, breaking up any lumps, until the breading is the consistency of a very thick sauce or a very light dough. This is never going to be a crispy breading, but it will absorb sauce well and compliment the eggplant.
Melt the rest of the butter, and stir in the sesame oil, the mirin or honey, the soy sauce or miso paste, and chili oil if you're using it. Taste. You want it sweet and salty, with a hint of sesame. Add two cloves garlic, put through a press or chopped extremely fine. Heat very slowly on the stove, adding cornstarch as a thickener until the sauce reaches your desired consistency. Do not burn cornstarch. It tastes odd. If you want a creamy sauce, melt the cream cheese into it here-- you may not need so much cornstarch. Take sauce off heat.
Pour off eggplant brine, rinsing each piece of eggplant thoroughly under a tap and patting dry with a towel. Rinse and dry saucepan. Heat oil until bubbles rise around a fork's tines placed in the middle. Dip eggplant in breading piece by piece and fry in oil until a fork easily penetrates the flesh. Drain on paper towels.
Serve with sauce. Serves seven as a side dish with pasta or rice; there will be leftovers.
