Fried Eggplant Salad

My Japanese friend cooked dinner for me a couple of weeks ago. One of the dishes she made was this wonderful eggplant dish, whose recipe she got from her another Japanese friend. I scarfed it down. Since I loved it so much, I had to ask her for the recipe. This is not exactly the same as the original recipe in terms of the amount of condiments, etc, but it worked for me.

Eggplant is one of my favorite vegetables. Unfortunately not my husband’s. When I first had this dish, I thought that he might be able to try this one! This is by far my favorite eggplant dish. Eggplants taste so great with oil! The best part is that it’s easy!!

Ingredients

eggplant………. 2 large size eggplants or 8 Japanese (small size) eggplants
vegetable oil……….as needed
dressing
A.
soy sauce……….4 tbs
mirin……….4 tbs
water……….2 tbs
sugar……….1 1/2 tbs
tobanjan……….optional
B.
green onion……..a half bunch
ginger, minced……..1 tbs
garlic, minced……….2 cloves

What is tobanjan?

Tobanjan is Korean spicy soy bean paste. You can find this at a Korean supermarket in the U.S.. Excuse my tobanjan’s look, as the label had another sticker for English translation.

Recipe
1. Cut eggplants longways first. Then cut the half pieces again longways. Then slice them into 1/2 cm to 1 cm wide (depending on your preference. I like them thin). Soak them in a bowl of salted water for 5 minutes. This removes much of the bitter taste. Drain the water and dry the eggplants on paper towels or a towel. (If you peel part of the skin, you can remove some of the bitter taste, too.) This is important in order to avoid any splashing hot oil when cooking.

2. Pour a table-spoon or two of vegetable oil into a frying pan and place eggplants on a hot frying pan and cook both sides with medium heat. Add more oil if needed.

3. Mix the dressing ingredients A in a small pot and heat it with low heat until the sugar melts. Remove from the heat and add the ingredients B in the pot and let it cool down a little.

4. Place all the pan fried eggplants in a bowl and mix in the dressing. This is good served warm or cold!

Happy cooking!