Eggplant!

I worked yesterday and today, which means I don't usually eat anything special (usually veggies, brown rice, beans, and miso soup....in some combination), so I have decided to dedicate today to eggplants. I cannot remember eating eggplants prior to a few months ago, but if I did it wasn't very memorable I guess. The first eggplant dish I had was a Japanese eggplant in an orange miso sauce at a restaurant called "Zushi". Jay attempted to sway me from purchasing this eggplant, but I wanted it....and he ended up eating half of it! Seriously fantastic! It had the softest mouthfeel and just a deep "buttery" taste. Oh. It was so so good. We talked about this specific eggplant for months, and then I attempted to make it and most definitely failed. However, I think I have figured out the sauce. Here are the photos and the maybe recipe.

• 2 Tbs sweet white miso
• 1 Tbs orange zest
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup earth balance or olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon shoyu/soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sake
• 2 Tbs. brown sugar

You only need about 1 Tbs of the sauce above to put on the eggplant, then garnish with sesame seeds. You can freeze the rest of the sauce. This is a tasting recipe, meaning you should taste it as you go and decide how much of everything you want to put in. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and add the miso at the very end (or else you deactivate all of its good enzymes). The eggplant is cooked, white soft part down in a little olive oil or you can broil it until it is super soft inside.

We went to one of our favorite restaurants and I was seriously wanting this eggplant. They didn't have this specific recipe, but what they did have was equally incredible:

God. This was so good. Its eggplant chopped up in a chili, teriyaki sauce, lots of olive oil, ginger and garlic with green onions on top. They used corn starch as a thickening agent I think. They garnished it with chili, green onion, carrot, and lettuce. This was seriously one of the best meals I have ever had. It was all cooked in a wok, but you could pan fry it. Cooked this way, eggplant really resembles the mouth feel of a scallop. So yummy.

Above is one of my eggplant creations, a cajun eggplant. Its just eggplants pan fried in olive oil with brown rice and then you add cayenne, chili powder, salt/pepper, lots of garlic and green onions/cilantro. Yummy, yummy, yummy.