Eggplant

[Sencha]

Hello, everyone. This is my first post here (although I'm a long time reader)! I did a search for eggplant here and didn't see a thread on it, so I thought I'd start one.

What are some favorite eggplant dishes that come to mind? Any particular preparation that you prefer?

[Pan]

Welcome!

There wasn't any thread on eggplant in the Japan Forum, but here's a 3-pager in the Cooking Forum, and here are the complete site-wide search results for topics with "eggplant" in the title.

[torakris]

nasu dengaku!

and sencha, welcome to eGullet and the Japan forum!

[Hiroyuki]

Agenasu no nibitashi

Cut each nasu (eggplant) in half, deep-fry.

Put in men tsuyu (noodle soup).

http://www.nsknet.or.jp/~chrkaji/yasuko/recipe/032_e.html

I'm not a fan of nasu, but I can eat this particular dish.

[dornachu]

Mine is really simple, i like to brush olive oil over and grill them in my griddle pan, or broil in oven, garnish with ponzu sauce! Yum.

[smallworld]

My favourite (Japanese) eggplant dish is yaki-nasu. Grilled till skin starts to blacken, skinned, and served drizzled with equal parts dashi and light soy sauce, and topped with grated ginger and bonito flakes.

I eat this a few times a week in the summer.

[Sencha]

Thanks for the welcome.

Those are some good dishes.

When I was younger, I didn't pay much attention to nasu, but as I've become a bit older (not that I'm old), I've come to appreciate the texture and flavor more. I'm still a bit odd about eggplant outside of Japanese cuisine though.

Hm....one of my favorite ways to cook it is sauteed with miso.

[BarbaraY]

Not a big fan of eggplant in general but I do like the nasu dengaku. Last time I made it I overcooked it, too. It sure doesn't take long to do that.

I'm waiting for the Oriental stand at the Farmer's Market to have eggplants. Theirs are much nicer and smaller then the ones in the grocery store.

[JasonTrue]

Everything that I mention below is with aku removed by salting, weighting, and rinsing.

I like Nasu-no miso-ni, which is braised eggplant with miso, mirin, and regionally varying amounts of sugar and sometimes dashi. The one I use in this photo is western eggplant because it looked better quality than the available Japanese nasu that day. (More explanation in this blog entry)

Agenasu with raw grated shoga and soy sauce is really nice. No breading needed.

Nasu no tempura with lots of parallel cuts in the skin, using skinny Japanese nasu or smaller Kyo-nasu.

Agedashi nasu which is almost the same except in a tsuyu with dashi and oroshi-daikon.

Dengaku nasu is a favorite of mine but I think I reserve it for the early fall nasu rather than summer nasu... I guess I don't crave it in hot weather.

Nasu grilled on shichirin (nasu no sumibi-yaki) is nice on a summer night (in Seattle); it might be more suitable for early fall in Japan.

I think I remember someone making kenchin-jiru with nasu for me before.

Edited June 13, 2005 by JasonTrue (log)

[torakris]

my husband's favorite miso soup is with deep fried eggplant slices and red miso...

[Kiem Hwa]

I usually panko and deep fry my nasu and then eat it with shoyu, otherwise I slice it thin (about 1/2cm), and dip in flour that has pepper and salt mixed in, and fry it in a tiny bit of oil.

i will have to try out these other suggestions though. However, I only get to eat nasu when i am not around my BF because he hates it

[JasonTrue]

How can you possibly build a relationship with someone who doesn't appreciate eggplant?

(Just kidding).

i will have to try out these other suggestions though.  However, I only get to eat nasu when i am not around my BF because he hates it

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[Kiem Hwa]

How can you possibly build a relationship with someone who doesn't appreciate eggplant?

(Just kidding).

i will have to try out these other suggestions though.  However, I only get to eat nasu when i am not around my BF because he hates it

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Haha...its the idea of eggplant that he doesn't like.... Once I was cooking dinner with a mischevious friend, and we cut an eggplant up into little bits and cooked it with garlic and some flavoring (I forget exactly what we did). He showed up later, and I told him it was beans... he ate it, and liked it...he wanted seconds!!! We were laughing so hard and told him it was eggplant... he stopped eating it immediately!

[Sencha]

Haha...its the idea of eggplant that he doesn't like.... Once I was cooking dinner with a mischevious friend, and we cut an eggplant up into little bits and cooked it with garlic and some flavoring (I forget exactly what we did).  He showed up later, and I told him it  was beans... he ate it, and liked it...he wanted seconds!!!  We were laughing so hard and told him it was eggplant... he stopped eating it immediately!  

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What is it about the idea of eggplant that he doesn't like, if I may ask? I'm a bit curious now!

[smallworld]

Haha...its the idea of eggplant that he doesn't like.... Once I was cooking dinner with a mischevious friend, and we cut an eggplant up into little bits and cooked it with garlic and some flavoring (I forget exactly what we did).  He showed up later, and I told him it  was beans... he ate it, and liked it...he wanted seconds!!!  We were laughing so hard and told him it was eggplant... he stopped eating it immediately!  

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What is it about the idea of eggplant that he doesn't like, if I may ask? I'm a bit curious now!

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Isn't eggplant one of those foods that North American WASPS are convinced they hate? Almost everyone I know in Canada hates eggplant. I remember one of my classes in high school had a potluck party, with my contribution being eggplant parmigiana. Not a single person tried it- including the teacher! They even made faces when I told them what it was...

[JasonTrue]

I always crave nasu tsukemono, but I think as a relatively young kid I must have thought eggplant was a strange idea.

Then, of course, I had a kid-palatable greasy eggplant parmesan and was conviced that eggplant had potential. I now have certain rules: I don't date women who don't fully appreciate chocolate, and I'm seriously skeptical of those who don't like eggplant.

One thing that seems to contribute to American unwillingness to try unfamiliar foods is that 60s-80s era parents increasingly indulged pickiness in their children, rather than continuing to serve them until they gave in. This, combined with the history of horrible abuse of vegetables in this country, made it easier for people to think of foods as strange or unpalatable even when someone has never tried that food.

I was relatively "picky" when I was a child, but my younger brothers were even more so. I gave up most of my uninformed rejection by the time I was 16 or so, and gradually started trying things that I had previously tasted and disliked... in most cases, I learned to appreciate them. At this point there's no vegetable, herb, mushroom, bean, cheese, or dairy product I won't touch. (Well, except for nonfat milk, maybe).

Of course, during college my palate was modified by political and ethical considerations, which morphed into a taste preference when my radical politics mellowed, and now I also have another eating idiosyncracy... but I think it made my palate more sensitive to good vegetables.

[Sencha]

It is sort of sad when people won't even try something. Too many people (at least in the US), have been raised to think that vegetables are disgusting.

In fact, a couple weeks ago, my niece was mentioning how she doesn't like many vegetables and named a very small list that she did like. I just looked at her like she was out of her mind. Then I asked if all she had eaten are canned vegetables, and sure enough, that was it. I laughed and told her that she would like them if she had them cooked right and went on to explain that it's no wonder she claimed to hate them. After all, I refuse to put those canned vegetables in my mouth. They're just....terrible.

In anycase, my nephews and niece are always glad to eat what I prepare, since it's a huge contrast to what they typically eat at home. Perhaps I'll try an eggplant dish next time I see them. They've already taken to anything else I've made. They're like a pack of wolves!

[BarbaraY]

I, too, was a picky kid and although we always had plenty of vegetables because my grandfather had a huge garden, the only way we had eggplant was breaded and fried.

Later discovered Eggplant Patmigiana but still didn't care for it any other ways until I found Oriental recipes like dengaku and Persian Bademjan.

Now I like it very much.

[helenjp]

Nasu cut in very thick rings, deepfried, patted to remove grease, then chilled either as is or in dashi, and served with a dab of yuzu-koshou.

Inaka-ni: slashed finely all over, and simmered in dashi with a heavy handed seasoning of soy/mirin. Serve chilled.

Mustard-dressed: Peel, split lengthwise, soak in water, boil, drain, dress with a mustardy vinaigrette, chill.

Cucumber-dressed. Boil as above, then serve with a dressing of finely grated cucumber, white onion, and lemon juice, salt.

Shira-ae dressing: Boil as above, but when drained, drop into dashi lightly seasoned with soy sauce and chill. Serve with a tofu/ground sesame shira-ae sauce, a little heavy on the sesame side.

Steamed: Halve and slice vertically, soak, then steam briefly. Chill, arrange overlapping slices concentrically on a plate, dress with grated ginger/garlic/soy sauce/vinegar/sesame oil, and sprinkle with chopped scallions.

[Hiroyuki]

I'm still not a fan of eggplants. I can eat them, but not with relish.

Do you have any specific varieties that you like? Niigata prefecture happens to be an eggplant kingdom, with Japan's largest planting area of 724 hectares, and Niigata people love eggplants. Among others, they grow kinchaku nasu, suitable for simmering, and juuzen nasu, suitable for light pickling.

Here is a photo (first one) of juuzen and another of juuzen light pickles:

http://jp.air-nifty.com/umetoko/2005/07/post_8b6f.html

My father, who comes from Nagano, grows maru nasu (ball-shaped variety) because he likes a specialty of Nagano called oyaki, which is usually made with this variety.

[Jason Perlow]

I like grilled Japanese Eggplant grilled with a white miso sauce.

http://bbq.about.com/od/vegetablerecipes/r/bl50901a.htm

I don't know what the Japanese name is but I love the stuff.

[jkonick]

I like grilled Japanese Eggplant grilled with a white miso sauce.

http://bbq.about.com/od/vegetablerecipes/r/bl50901a.htm

I don't know what the Japanese name is but I love the stuff.

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That's basically nasu dengaku, which has been mentioned a couple times in this thread, it's one of my favorites! Although I don't know about the inclusion of mayonnaise in the sauce

I know a lot of modern Japanese cooking uses mayo, is this done in Japan at all with this dish? I personally can't stand the stuff, so I'll stick to the non-mayo version.

[torakris]

Jason,

what your enjoying is dengaku.

In the US a "Japanese eggplant" refers to one that is slender, in Japan there are actually quite a few different eggplants to choose from on a daily basis. Here are some pictures of eggplants I can find in a supermarket on almost any given day. Though they look very similar in size some of them are quite small and some are quite large. The large globe eggplant popular in the US is also grown here but a bit smaller than the ones I see in the US, it is called a　米なすbeinasu or American eggplant (2nd from the bottom).

There are also many regional varieties, this breaks down the regions and the eggplants that are popular there.

[Hiroyuki]

Jason, your favorite dish will be called "nasu no miso mayonnaise yaki".

"xx no miso mayonnaise yaki" is surprisingly popular, but xx is often the name of a fish, like sawara, hokke, and sake (salmon), and maguro (tuna).

You can call it nasu dengaku, but the name is somewhat misleading.

[_john]

I was just given a gift of beautiful mizunasu. does anyone know what the best way to enjoy mizunasu is? I have had them lightly pickled as an appetizer at sushi restaurants and was amazed at the flavor of raw eggplant. I had never had raw eggplant before that time and now I am a total convert. What is the technique for pickling them like that? How else can I enjoy these mizunasu (I have a big box of them)?