Grilled Eggplant with Sesame and Green Onions

Friday, June 13, 2008

These days are oppressively humid and I feel especially lazy. I've been eating a lot of grilled vegetables, either the street barbecue known as shaokao (烧烤)or done on a cast iron stovetop grill pan. If you have great vegetables a little oil and salt can transform a potato and half an eggplant into something really satisfying. After eating vast quantities of plain grilled eggplant, however, I was searching for a little variety and happened on this recipe from epicurious, which combines onion, sesame seeds, sesame oil, and soy sauce into a barbecue sauce that contains neither sugar nor acid. Too lazy to adapt, or even copy it out, I am simply linking to it. (I did toast my own sesame seeds; very worth it if you have time.) Sesame and eggplant are natural together and this came out quite rich and salty, making me wish I had sour cream or some of the potato salad left.

Watch this space for more grilling in the next few weeks...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How was the texture? I usually find eggplant to be a little too smushy for me. but maybe I've just had it done the wrong way...

Rachel said...

This looks really yummy!

Anonymous said...

Hi, they do cook up soft. You can give them a crispy surface if you grill them just plain. For some reason I've always liked eggplant, even when I was little.

Pepper

Bobbisox said...

What an excellent idea! I do the short ribs the Korean barbeque way, I can see this recipe also merging with mine. Maybe I had better plant a few more eggplants for this recipe.