Agenasu (Fried eggplants)

Years ago, I always got goosebumps (certainly not in a good way!) whenever I heard and had to eat EGGPLANT. Blech. I always thought it was slimy, yucky, smelly...now this was strange..eggplants are not supposed to smell, are they?
But things changed! I don`t know if it`s only me (getting older and wiser, ahem), my taste buds (getting more welcoming), or Japan has delicious eggplants, but I mysteriously have fallen for this vegetables. I think eggplant is beautifully juicy and sweet! I knew this when I had a nasu tenpura (battered and deep fried eggplant) and agenasu or fried eggplants (nasu is eggplant by the way), which I`m about to show you.

I actually have posted about this dish while ago, but I just can`t help not to make a real post on it because this is a really simple yet good dish!
One cool thing from this dish is, you don`t need to peel off anything! Unless you don`t eat eggplant`s skin, this dish can be done very very quickly.

So, get your eggplants, wash, and dry them with kitchen paper.

Cut them in quarters and set aside.

As I want the dish to have more volume, I added eringi mushroom. My favorite one!

Cut them up lengthwise or simply chop them.

Now heat some olive oil on a frying pan and saute these mushrooms until lightly browned. They smell yummy nutty!

When they look like this, set them aside on a plate.

 Now, the eggplant quarters. In Japanese cookbooks or cooking shows, they usually deep-fried the eggplants. But I`m not a deep-frying person. I`m happy with sauteing or shallow-frying. So this is what I do, sauteing the eggplant quarters until the flesh turns green, slightly translucent, and get nicely browned. By the way, eggplant flesh absorb oil quite quickly so sometimes you need to drizzle more oil during the sauteing.

Place the browned eggplants together with the mushroom.

Now the sauce. I used soy sauce, ginger powder, oyster sauce, and sesame oil. Mix it up and drizzle over them.

For final touch, I topped it with katsuo bushi (bonito shavings) and sprinkled with sesame seed and seaweed flakes.






p.s. This dish has previously posted as a side dish in here and here.

Ingredients:
Eggplants
Eringi mushroom
Bonito shavings
Seaweed flakes
Sesame seeds


Sauce:
Soy sauce
Oyster sauce
Ginger powder
Sesame oil