...such was the case last night - when all three of us really wanted some Chinese food...
...so we spent a little time perusing our cookbooks and came up with this recipe - it's from my other oldest cookbook The Joy of Cooking...
...so we soaked our dried black mushrooms - and cut up our eggplant...
...salted it and left it to sit (it removes the bitterness - the recipe didn't say to do this - I just know from experience that you need to)...
...then we cut up our other veg - the recipe called for fresh snow peas - but we don't have fresh snowpeas at our little grocery - so we just left those out...
...My brother had given us a big box of oriental foodstuffs when we were visiting down south - Thanks E! - so we had soba noodles and Hoisin sauce - which we used as a substitute for the oyster sauce the recipe called for...
...Scout loved that the noodles were packed in little bundles with little paper wrappers...
...so we got those cooking...
...then we tossed our eggplant into a smokin' hot cast iron frying pan...
...got it all nice and brown...
...took it out and drained it on some toweling...
...then we tossed all of our other veg into the same pan...
...added the sauce - just a mixture of soy sauce, water and Hoisin Sauce...
...add your eggplant back and let that cook almost dry...
...make a bed of your grey noodles on a platter - none of us thought this looked very appetizing...
...but topped with the veg - it made a pretty platter...
...we also had a side-dish/almost dessert of sweet and sour veg over Jasmine rice - this was so good and so simple:
Sweet & Sour Veg
Cook one cup of Jasmine Rice in two cups of water until done and fluffy.
1 can pineapple - drained and juice reserved - add enough water to the juice to make one cup.
2 carrots cut in thin slices
1 small green pepper cut into chunks
1 small red pepper cut into chunks
1 small yellow pepper cut into chunkns
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar - we used Turbinado
1 clove garlic chopped
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 Tablespoons water
Put the pineapple juice, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and sugar into a pot and bring to a boil - add the carrots and cook for about 5 or 6 minutes until crisp tender.
Stir the cornstarch into the water and whisk into the boiling liquid.
Add the peppers and pineapple and reheat to boiling - cook about 1 minute and pour over the hot rice.
yum!! so cool that it looks better than a restaurant version!
ReplyDeletelove, k
Looks like a lot of work but I'll bet it was worth it. I know how you love Chinese food. MOM
ReplyDeleteWe love soba noodles and that eggplant dish looks good! Now I'm hungry (c:
ReplyDeleteWe are stir fry fans over here and this looks delicious and easy!
ReplyDeleteI think my hubby will go for it even though it has eggplant - wonder if zucchini would be a suitable stand in ?
Oh yum! I always get hungry coming to one of your blogs!
ReplyDelete