Eggplant in spicy ginger-garlic sauce

Do you like eggplant? I know there are either 'haters' or 'lovers' in each of us when it comes to eggplant. I love eggplant. My eggplant fascination goes a long, long way. Back when I was a kid, I used to wait eagerly for my granny to make her Vangibath recipe. Nothing, nothing can pull me away from tamarind and other sour food. I love tamarind and could possibly eat it by itself. Okay, I have done that too. But then, I digress.

Actually not. That is the major reason why I love Chinese cuisine. Or, at least the Indo-Chinese food. Its sweet, sour and spicy - all at the same time. However, for all my eggplant fascination, I'm no fan of soggy eggplant in a Chinese sauce. A is. He loves all kinds of vegetables and anything Chinese. So, every single time we go to a Chinese restaurant, he is always wanting to try this dish and I keep avoiding it. Thanks to me being the dominant one in the relationship (I needn't have specified that now, right?), we've escaped the eggplant dish so far.

That said, beggars can't be choosers. Especially, when you beg your husband to cook fantastic food when its your turn to indulge him. How much A loves cooking is actually an understatement on this blog now. And in my life too. I take it for granted every evening that A will come up with something. This is one of those dishes that I couldn't him stop him from making. I agreed on a sulky note to just make do with the gravy and tofu in the dish.

Well, what do you expect, ladies and gentlemen, I was wrong. Yet again. This is one of my favorite Chinese dishes now. I can't claim that all eggplant haters will love this dish, but surely, do try it and let us know how you liked it! Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

1 large eggplant, cut into 1 to 1.5" chunks

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup tofu, cubed and fried with minimal oil until crisp on both sides

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 scallion, bulb and green part separated

3-4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

3-4 tbsp coarsely chopped ginger

3 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp molasses (optional)

1 tbsp vinegar

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

2 tbsp canned tomato sauce or puree

2-3 tbsp soy sauce

salt and cayenne pepper powder to taste

1-2 tsp red chilli flakes

1/3-1/2 cups water.

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1. Get started on the sauce. Take 1-2 tsp sesame oil when hot, add sesame seeds, garlic and ginger. When the garlic starts to turn brown, add the tomato sauce. When is almost cooked, add the molasses, brown sugar, soy sauce, cayenne pepper powder, salt, both vinegars and water. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let things simmer for 10-15 mins. Add the tofu at the 5 minute mark so that it absorbs all the flavors.

2. While the sauce simmers, in a separate pan, fry the eggplant on medium heat until tender but not mushy. Add some salt and red pepper flakes to it while its cooking. Keep it separate.

3. In the same pan, fry the onions with some oil, salt and red pepper flakes.

4. Add the eggplant and pour the sauce on top. Cook until the eggplants almost turn soft, about 5-6 mins. This will also let the flavors to absorb further.

5. Top with chopped greens from the scallion.

Enjoy it hot with rice!

It has this nuttiness thanks to the sesame seeds and the crisp tofu works great against the soft eggplant. I'm sure this'd go great with whole wheat noodles or rice vermicelli too! We had it with hot steaming rice and ate it with our hands :D I think, for meals like this, eating with hands wins hands down (pun unintended!) as against with a fork!

What do you think?

The AnBurgers...for those who cant have Angus!

I love burgers and fries, but most of the stuff available is non vegetarian and very obviously doesn't fit my lifestyle. However, I realize that even if I was a non vegetarian, I wouldn't have touched the burgers served here with a barge-pole. I saw the movie SuperSize Me. I've wanted to watch this movie for ages now and finally got to watch it. I almost fasted that day. That movie scared me. I knew all the facts stated in the movie, but to watch it happen to this guy scared the living daylights out of me. I also remembered the book Fast Food Nation I'd read a couple of years ago. Then, I wondered if I could EVER eat a burger and be happy about it. And when I shared my fears to A, he, as usual, being the the one who thinks and come up with action plans decided to make a dinner out of this fear that night. We didn't have burger buns and didn't have the time at 7 PM to bake them either. So, A created these two types of patties - beans and Tofu-veggie and we had a burger w/fries dinner that night. One of the best dinners we've had and one of the best times together cooking in the kitchen :)

Here is the recipe for you guys!

Advisory: The burgers that you're about to witness are very healthy and do not contain any potatoes ;)

Ingredients (makes about four 4" burgers):

For the AnTofu burger (that's right...the first two alphabets are a shameless way of copying McDonalds and taking credit for it :D)

1/2 lb firm tofu
1/2 cup bread crumbs*
salt and red chili powder to taste
1/2 tsp crushed, dried oregano
1 tsp Kraft BBQ sauce
1 jalapeno, finely chopped (you can remove the seeds if you want)
1 small red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/4 cup corn cobs (thawed and drained if frozen. If using fresh corn, boil it in water and remove the cobs and drain them)
1 tsp olive oil

* the use of bread crumbs depends on how well you drain the water from the tofu so adjust accordingly. It is not necessary to drain all the water from the tofu. the idea is to have enough moisture to hold the burgers while cooking them.

For the AnBean proteinaceous Pattie (yup, we did it again!) (makes about six-seven 3" patties)

1/2 cup chick peas
1/2 cup navy beans
1/2 cup black beans
1/2 cup Great Northern beans
1/4 cup coarse corn grits
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp olive oil

1. For the AnTofu burger, wrap the tofu with a tea towel and place a 3 lb (or similar) weight and let it drain for 15-20 mins.

2. When done, crumble the tofu in a bowl and mix everything else.

3. Make large balls and flatten them to 1/4-1/3" thickness. Try to pack as much stuff as you can to make a nice dense ball. This will hold the burgers while cooking them. I guess one could try using a burger press, but we cant guarantee if it'll work ;)

4. In a flat bottomed pan, bring some oil to heat and cook the burgers on each side for about 7-8 mins on medium heat. Try one burger to see if it 'holds up'. If not, add some more bread crumbs and try it again. We had to do this once as our first burger fell apart a little bit. Once the burger doesn't disintegrate, you could make 3-4 at a time.

5. Take 'em out and place on a plate lined with paper towel to drain any excess oil.

6. For the AnBean patties, mix all the beans in a bowl by tossing them with your hands. take 1/4 of this mixture and pulse them 2-3 times in a food processor or a blender. Remove the resulting thick mass.

7. Mix this with the remaining beans and everything else.

8. Form balls (as big as you want) and flatten them to 1/4-1/3" thickness. cook them just like the AnTofu burgers.

9. Serve with accompaniments like pickled cucumbers, mustard, ketchup and fries. We had ours with some baked sweet potato fries.

This extremely healthy veggie burger/sandwich what with whole grain bread and all the beans and veggies goes to Srivalli who is hosting this month's Monthly Mingle, an event started by Meeta of WFLH.

These are two vegetarian burgers with totally different tastes. The AnTofu burger has the smoky taste from the BBQ sauce and the AnBean burger has its own distinct taste from all the beans.

Another thing is that these are essentially Vegan burgers. Or at least these can be easily adapted to suit your vegan appetite. neither contain any potatoes ;) As far as the event goes, we don't have any kids yet but we were kids ourselves at one point of time ;) So we KNOW how hard it is to feed them vegetables. These burgers are packed with nutrients. The AnTofu burger is a great source of proteins, vitamins and minerals. The AnBean burger is once again, loaded with proteins and is a good way to feed legumes to kids. And to make them aware of the existence of vegetables that are not called potatoes ;)

If that's not enough, you could ask your kids to make those patties for you...saves you time (or maybe not!) and it keeps them happy. And you could give them a couple of pointers on how to take pics so that they don't have any trouble creating their own food blog :D

Green Thai Curry - Off to Healthy Cooking!

While I racked my brains on what to submit to Mansi's Healthy cooking event, and almost gave up, Sireesha came along with an award for us (I cannot believe it, still, though) and I thought that we couldn't give up now! After all this! So, A and I concocted this Green Thai Curry for the event. Two days ago, we ate at Top Spice, a popular Thai-Malaysian restaurant here in Atlanta with my cousin and her family and I was a convert. I'm not the Thai food type while A pigs on Thai food. Tofu is his life saviour and I do not consider Tofu at all. Like, I do not think its food. Blame it on its colour or its texture!

Speaking of colour, I love colour in my food. I love chaat not just because of its taste, but because of the medley of colours on the plate. I love bright looking food than pale food. I like my food messy and colourful than neatly arranged and all that. Well, you get it. I'm not one of those perfect food blogga types ;) So, ya, getting back to the food! A came home from work and decided to make a Thai curry. I was game since I've started loving Thai food in the last two days :) Our fridge had remnants of veggies from a long-gone Farmer's Market trip. And this situation was perfect for a Thai dinner. So, here it is - the colours, the flavour, the richness, and all the proteins, vitamins that one can have on a plate, presenting to you the Green Thai Curry!

Ingredients (serves 2-3 people):

1lb (454g) Tofu

1 medium green bell pepper (capsicum)

1 medium red bell pepper

2 carrots

1/2 bunch spinach leaves

1 bunch spring onions

5-6 pieces dried red chillies

2-3 pieces of fresh green chillies

1 tbsp peanut butter (substitute with 20-25 pieces of peanut ground into a paste)

2 cups water

salt to taste

2 tbsp oil

1 tsp chopped ginger

1 tsp honey

1 tsp lemon juice

1. Divide the block of Tofu into two equal portions. Grind one half with the spinach leaves, half of the red chillies, all the green chillies, lemon juice and ginger. This forms the 'green' gravy or base.

2. Cut the other half into cubes and saute them in 1/2 tbsp oil until they are crisp and golden. Set aside.

3. In a pan, add 1 tbsp oil and saute the spring onions and all other vegetables in that order. You can choose to add different vegetables to create your own curry. Broccoli, baby corn, mushrooms, even potatoes! Add the remaining red chillies and let this cook for 10 mins. Add salt in between.

4. Add 1 tbsp peanut butter (or the peanut paste), water, honey and the gravy. Let this simmer for 15 mins.

5. Now add the crisp tofu cubes and let it cook for a few more minutes.

6. Finally, add the coconut milk/cream to the curry (take pictures ;)) and mix well and let it cook for a couple of mins. Once done, serve hot with steamed rice.

Thanks again Sireesha for the award! We received the 'Nice Matters' award from her and would like to pass it on to: Nags who is one of the inspirations behind this food blog and Mom's Cooking (another one I know personally!) and Sameera, two absolutely new bloggers like us :) So, there! Yes, I repeat again, this healthy Thai curry goes to Mansi's event - Healthy Cooking! Here is another picture of our wholesome dinner, little rice and loads of veggies: