Thursday, 9 January 2014

Kitchen Nomad globe-cooking recipe : Korea - Sauteed Eggplant


I dipped into last month's Kitchen Nomad box last night, cooking up a Korean feast featuring not one but two of the recipes from it. The first one was Sauteed Eggplant.


This called for four ingredients from the box - sesame seeds, sesame oil, soy sauce and Korean chili.


The sesame seeds from the box were actually labelled Roasted Till Seed but I've discovered that that's just another name for sesame seeds. They look like minute orange lentils and they have a lovely nutty flavour that is more intense than usual - maybe because they're roasted?


The first job is chopping and stir-frying the aubergine with garlic and shallots. (The recipe called for spring onions but I couldn't get hold of any, neither at the supermarket nor the farmers' market, so I figured shallots would have to do !)


I'd never used sesame oil before - it has a dark colour and a strong nutty flavour so it needs to be used sparingly but gives food a lovely flavour, whether used for frying or as a dressing.


Korean chilli seems coarser and less fiery than the usual chilli powder I use.


It's a really simple dish - it's just a case of stir-frying then seasoning.


I'm not usually a fan of aubergines but I did really like these. Sprinkling sesame seeds over the finished dish gave it a lovely taste and texture and the sesame oil and soy sauce worked well too. This is designed as a starter but we ate it as a side dish with the second Korean dish, Sweet Potato Noodles, that I'll tell you about later.

Disclosure : I received a discounted Kitchen Nomad subscription in order to keep you up to date with their latest boxes. 

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