You’ll find two dozen or so eggplant recipes there, but I’m going to try this one from “Chinatown Kitchen” by Lizzie Mabbott. Just basically browned eggplant with herbs and my favorite Vietnamese dipping sauce. Perfect summer dish. You could use a little habanero in place of the bird’s eye chile. Not traditional, but still delicious. Lizzie’s recipe calls for making the nuoc cham in a mortar and pestle. Full disclosure – I’ll be doing this in a food processor.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil 1 large eggplant, cut into fingers 1/2 handful of mint Handful of fresh cilantro Nuoc Cham (see below) Handful of toasted cashews, coarsely crushed Nuoc Cham: 1 fat garlic clove 2 teaspoons soft dark brown sugar 1 red bird’s-eye chile (use more if you like it really hot, less if you don't) Juice of 1 lime 2 tablespoons fish sauce, or to taste 2 tablespoons water, or to taste
Preparation:
Heat the oil in a wok until almost smoking, then turn the heat down to medium and fry the eggplant until golden, turning occasionally. Do not burn. Transfer the eggplant to a baking dish. Cook under a preheated medium broiler for 20 minutes, turning the eggplant halfway through.
Chop the mint finely, and the cilantro leaves coarsely. Set aside. (If you have roots on your cilantro stalks, wash them well, chop them finely, and add them to the mortar to be ground into the nuoc cham sauce.)
To Prepare the Nuoc Cham:
Peel the garlic clove and crush with the sugar using a mortar and pestle until it is a smooth paste. Seed the chile, chop it coarsely, and then add it to the mortar and give it a good pounding. Add the lime juice and mix well.. Add 1 tablespoon of the fish sauce and taste. Add 1 tablespoon water and taste. Keep doing this until you have the desired piquancy or pungency. Remember that you can always add but you can’t take away.
To assemble, place the eggplant in a serving dish while warm, top with the mint and cilantro, and dress with the nuoc cham. Finally, scatter the dish with the cashews to serve.