We are going to be trying a Lot of Eggplant Recipes Around Here

Chopped up eggplants, red and orange Thai chiles, garlic, fish sauce and sugar, and holy basil

How many Green Thai Eggplants are in that last photo? There were TWENTY-FIVE. Because there are so many of them, I used the internet to look up recipes specifically for this variety of eggplant (usually termed “Brinjal”). I discovered that when I tried them this summer, when they first fruited, I was using over-ripe ones. When the seeds within are black and huge, the eggplants are bitter and SUCK. You are supposed to use them when the seeds are STILL WHITE!

So perhaps I will plant them again, because when you use them under-ripe, they are very , VERY good. They hold their shape under the duress of cooking better than other eggplants, and they have a softer, more melting quality (as opposed to “sorta slimy”.) Since I picked all of these small and because of the SNOW AND FREEZE, I am pretty sure they are ALL under-ripe; i.e.  Usable.

Tonight I went to the art show and private party/opening of local artist Valerie Fowler, and due to a variety of circumstances, I hadn’t eaten from 11AM til 10 PM (I MEANT to cook this eggplant dish for myself for Lunch, or early dinner! But I never had time. AND, I REFUSED to eat anything ELSE, because, did I mention I NEED TO USE UP TWENTY-FIVE EGGPLANTS?

Leaves of Sacred Basil

That just doesn’t happen if you give in to the temptation to grab a burger in the midst of your errands. It takes RESOLVE.

So I came home from the party, which R*O*CK*E*D and it is the best party of my entire year (okay, it is usually the ONLY party of my year) because I pretty much know at least HALF of the people who go to it and THEY ARE ALL MY FRIENDS! Plus Valerie sold a lot of her art (she usually does) so it was Very Festive!

ANYWAY, then I came home and made Pud Makua Yow: Basil Eggplant. I made it really really fast, too, because I was about ready to eat my own ARM off by that point! As Thai dishes (that I have made) go, this is THE FASTEST!

(While I was making it, I thought: “GoshDarnIt, I always use just the smallest drop of fish sauce because Dave thinks it smells so terrible. But I am starving and I want to use the full amount, and I am GOING TO! I mean, maybe he won’t even notice and I am being overly cautious…”

The second I added the fish sauce/sugar mixture, Dave came careening into the kitchen going, “WHAT IS THAT SMELL?!?!? OMIGOD     IT SMELLS LIKE DIRTY WHORE CROTCH!!      WHORE CROTCH!! WHORE CROTCH!!    How can you EAT that?!?!?!?”

["How can you eat that?!?"  being a not-uncommon remark from my vegetarian husband who hates food so much that he wishes "they just made a pill" so he would never have to eat again. Because the very idea of most foods is so revolting! "Mushrooms are a FUNGUS! Like athlete's foot! How could you eat a FUNGUS?"]

Later in the evening he respectfully requested that I NOT cook with fish sauce when he is home. So, heh, I guess I was right to be cautious in the past. Oh, and warning: fish sauce, it DOES smell kinda bad when you add it to the pan! And speaking of which, How does HE know what dirty whore crotch smells like?)

This dish is very easy and I make it a LOT, because I  have sacred basil and hot chiles (and eggplant) in my garden about 6 months of the year, if not more.

See it Simmer in the Pan

Here is the recipe:

BASIL EGGPLANT ( PUD MAKUA YOW)

1	tablespoon	vegetable oil
1	bunch	Thai basil, leaves picked from the stem
1	tablespoon	sugar
2	cloves	garlic, chopped
2	tablespoons	fish sauce
2		eggplants
2		chili peppers

Slice the eggplants into irregular shapes for easy turning in the pan. When it is sliced into a small disk, it tends to stick to the bottom of the pan and makes it difficult to flip or turn.

Chop garlic and slice chili peppers. Pick the leaves from the stem of the Thai basil.

Heat a pan or wok over high or medium high. Add oil, chili peppers and garlic. Stir until the garlic turn golden brown. Add eggplant and stir. Add a cup of water and cover the pan or wok with a lid. Keep the lid close until the eggplant is cooked. It should take about 5-7 minutes before the eggplant is done. The eggplant turns from white to translucent when it is done. Almost all of the water should have been evaporated at this point. If the eggplant is still not cooked, add a little bit more water and keep lid closed until the eggplant is ready. Add fish sauce and sugar and stir. Add Thai basil and quickly stir to heat the basil, so that it retains it color. Turn off heat immediately.

Serve hot with rice.

Don't the red peppers and bright green basil make it look pretty? It was EXTRAORDINARILY delicious, too.

Snow and Thai Green Eggplants and Purple Basil and Thai Chiles and Snow

Mostly Green Thai Eggplants, called Brinjals

IT IS SUPPOSED TO SNOW TONIGHT.

For the Non-Texan among you, this is REALLY UNHEARD OF. Texas is very, very large and it DOES regularly snow in North Texas, but I am in Central Texas where you plant citrus trees in the GROUND. Of course the snow will melt when it hits the ground, because it was 70˚ here 2 days ago; but STILL:  SNOW!

Strangely  (in my limited SNOW! experience anyway), there is not supposed to be a Freeze tonight. The low is supposed to be 35˚. So I don’t have to cover the garden tonight. Tomorrow night though: they are predicting 22˚, meaning, I will be spending hours covering the garden TOMORROW and putting a heater into the $25 greenhouse.

I did, however, run around and pick the few remaining nightshades. In this really lovely photo you see: Purple Basil, Green Thai Eggplants, Poblanos, Thai Chiles, 3 Tangerines, and a Meyer lemon. I didn’t realize I had so MANY Green eggplants! They have huge seeds and I won’t be planting them again, I have found them too hard to cook with compared to the Japanese ones. But now I have to try to cook SOMETHING out of them, because, look, they are so pretty and I have so MANY!

Thai Beef Salad

Thai Beef Salad, my dinner tonight, pictured with a wicked hot Thai pepper out of the garden

I love this, and it is a perfect way to prepare leftover sirloin, which is common in my house because I love grilled steak. (My other favorite way to use leftover steak is a steak sandwich with mayonnaise on squishy white bread. And potato chips.) Most of the ingredients are right in the Central Texas garden in fall and winter.

Chopped up hot pepper, onion, mint, sacred basil, cilantro, and cucumber

You will need:

Leftover grilled sirloin, rare (buy grass-fed if you can find it. It has TWICE the flavor of conventional, and more omerga-3 oils, and JUST DO AS I COMMAND!)

Lettuce

A sweet onion (a 1014 or a Bermuda or a few shallots)

10 strands (or more) of Cilantro

A fat sprig or two (or four) of Mint

Sacred Basil if available, one sprig (or 3)

A cucumber

A carrot

Fresh hot peppers (2) or ONE SMALL THAI pepper (!)

Pickled hot peppers if you don’t have fresh

One clove of garlic

Fish sauce (one or two teaspoons)

Lime or lemon or Meyer lemon (all the juice of one)

Tablespoon of sugar

Adding the sliced rare sirloin

This salad is fun to make because everything is cold, there is no rush and no worries about overcooking anything, you can just kind of zone out while you are chopping.

Thinly slice clove of garlic and fresh hot pepper. Then thinly slice roughly a quarter of the sweet onion (less if it is big) and the cucumber and toss all the chopped up things in a bowl. Add pickled hot pepper if your fresh pepper isn’t spicy.

(HAVE I MENTIONED THAT ONE SMALL THAI PEPPER IS ENOUGH TO MAKE IT VERY, VERY HOT?)

A bed of just-picked Red Oak Leaf and Buttercrunch lettuce

Put the carrot through the fine grater and add. Deleaf and chop up the cilantro, mint, and Thai basil and add. Slice up the leftover sirloin as thinly as you can without undue strain, and toss in the rest of the stuff. In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, lime juice, and fish sauce. Pour over the salad and toss. Serve on a bed of lettuce.