Eggplant, Aubergine, or Nasu in Japanese. It’s one of the Edo traditional vegetables with rich umami taste. This vegetable is delicious, affordable, and beloved by Japanese, so learn how to make it in no time.
Aubergine cultivation in Japan has been going on for almost twelve centuries, and is the third most common vegetable in modern-day culinary use. The Japanese studied it well throughout those years, the thin skin and sponge-like texture allow it to take on flavorings like miso, soy sauce, and ginger quickly. It’s also a symbol of good luck.
Today, I would like to show you how to prepare eggplant the Japanese way. Few different recipes and one simple cooking technique.
Cooking Nasu
I understand that many of us doesn’t have a grill at home as you can hardly get a place with an oven in Tokyo, but to get that grill flavor, all you need is Teflon pan, cover, and heat.
This cooking method I saw on the Japanese TV program, it was introduced by famous Chef from Kyoto, it’s simple and works great. Place Nasu on a Teflon-frying pan without any oil, butter, or softener and turn on the heat to medium-high.
Give it a minute or two for the pan to become hot, then cover the Nasu with a lid and cook for 3 minutes. After that, turn it upside down, cover, and give another 3 minutes. Do the same thing to the sides, but cook only for 1 minute each.
It should take a total of 8 minutes to cook.
Peel eggplant while hot it as skin comes off easily. However it tastes great straight from the pan, just cut from the top add some soy sauce and a little bit of butter, enjoy.
Grilled Nasu pickled or in olive oil
This dish requires 2 long roasted eggplants, a pinch of salt, 1 tsp of soy sauce, 200 ml of olive oil and 100 ml of vinegar for pickled version.
Roughly chop peeled eggplant, season with salt, and soy sauce. Now the choice is yours if you add olive oil it will be savory, if you decide on vinegar it’s more of a dressing style.
Rice bowl with grilled Nasu
I’m not going to describe the way of preparing the rice as you probably know it already, instead let’s focus on the sauce for the grilled eggplant.
Ingredients you will need: dashi stock 150 ml, 2 tbsp (36 ml) soy sauce, 2 tbsp (36 ml) mirin, some water-soluble potato starch.
Bring all the ingredients to boil except for potato starch, which has to be added at the very end to thicken the sauce. Peel grilled eggplant and place on top of the rice, pour the sauce over it, and garnish with green onions. Enjoy!
Grilled miso soup
This way of cooking aubergine gives you endless possibilities on how to use it after all. Simplicity is the key, in my cooking, I always try to use three to four flavors as too many of them makes the dish complex.
This is the easiest recipe you can make in no time.
Use 1 grilled&peeled eggplant, 200 ml of soup stock, and 1 tsp (5 g) of miso paste.
If your miso paste is with dashi, you can substitute soup stock for water. Put the grilled eggplant in the middle of the small soup bowl and pour miso, serve hot.
summary
There are many more recipes and ingredients out there that can be used when it comes to Nasu. I will try to make another post which would be quite similar to this one and give you another three quick and fresh ideas on how to approach this vegetable.
I hope you will like it and if you have any questions, problems or ideas, please let me know!
tadeushi no nikki 