Chinese Eggplant with Tofu

Eggplant with Spicy Garlic Sauce from the restaurant Little Szechuan on Buford Highway was the first eggplant dish my daughter liked. I modified the "Shredded Eggplant with Minced Pork" recipe from the California Culinary Academy's cookbookChinese Cooking Techniques to create this vegetarian dish my daughter enjoys eating at home.

Eggplant

I have made this recipe with both the large regular or Italian eggplants and thin Chinese or Japanese eggplants. For both types, I recommend removing the eggplant skin, unless it is very tender, to get the best results.

The following recipe specifies thin Chinese or Japanese eggplants. I use about 2 2" X 12" eggplants to make this dish. If using large regular or Italian eggplants, bake the eggplants longer until they are tender.

Soy Sauce

I use regular or dark soy sauce when cooking this dish; however, my family prefers Pearl River Bridge light soy sauce for table use. We first tried this soy sauce when my daughter prepared some Chinese recipes that used this brand for a school project.

Ingredients

1 1/2 - 2	Lbs	Chinese or Japanese (long, thin) eggplants
1	Tsp	Sugar
2	Tbsp	Soy sauce
1	Tbsp	Rice vinegar
1/2	Tsp	Salt
2	Tbsp	Vegetable oil
1		Medium Onion, cut in 1/2 and then into cresent slices
2	Tbsp	Ginger, peeled and finely grated
2	Tbsp	Garlic, finely chopped
1/2 - 1	Tsp	Red pepper flakes
1/2	Lbs	Tofu, cut into 2" X 1/4" X 1/4" pieces
1	Tsp	Sesame seed oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prick eggplant, place on rimmed baking sheet and bake until tender, about 1 hour. Every 15 minutes, turn the eggplant so all sides cook.
2. Peel eggplant and cut into strips 1/4" x 2".
3. Mix together sugar, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and salt in a tea cup to make a sauce.
4. Over high heat, heat oil in wok. When hot, add onion slices and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring often until edges start to turn brown.
5. Add ginger and garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
6. Add red pepper flakes and cook for 10 seconds.
7. Add tofu and cook for 30 seconds.
8. Reduce heat to medium. Add eggplant strips and sauce from tea cup. Cook 3-5 minutes until throughly heated, stirring often.
9. Turn off heat and drizzle with sesame seed oil.
10. Serve with rice and extra soy sauce.

Make Your Own Yogurt

While visiting India, I enjoyed homemade yogurt in different dishes. Some of my favorites were vegetables, yogurt, and spices mixed in a raita, curd rice served to aid digestion after a spicy meal, and shrikhand, saffron flavored sweetened strained yogurt, similar to Greek yogurt.

I started making my own yogurt after receiving an EasiYo yogurt maker from my aunt as a Christmas present.

EasiYo

The EasiYo yogurt maker is a thermal carafe with a container for yogurt that fits inside it. The space around the container is filled with boiling water to help the yogurt set. The yogurt maker came with powdered, instant yogurt mix. I enjoyed the initial packages. Since refills were not easily available, I adopted the following yogurt making technique using fresh milk, powdered milk, and a tablespoon of store bought yogurt with active cultures.

If you do not have an EasiYo, you can substitute an insulated water jug. As a test, I made two cups, a half batch of the following yogurt recipe, in my daughter's half-gallon Rubbermaid water cooler that she used for band practice. I put an empty, 8 ounce plastic yogurt cup in the bottom of the cooler topped with a one quart glass canning jar containing the heated milk and yogurt. I added boiling water, closed the container, and let it set.

Yogurt Culture

To start my yogurt the first time, I use a tablespoon of store bought yogurt with active cultures. Then the next time, I use a tablespoon of my old yogurt in the new batch. I also keep a tablespoon frozen. If I use all my yogurt or have a yogurt flop, I can thaw this tablespoon and use it for a new batch.

Dry Milk

Especially when using low-fat milk, the yogurt I made was thin; so I started adding dry milk to get a thicker result. I use instant nonfat dry milk from Aldi or Wal-Mart.

Sweet Yogurt

I usually make plain yogurt. For sweet yogurt, add sugar to room temperature milk before putting it to set. Try a half-cup sugar to 4 cups milk for a slightly sweet yogurt.

Boiling Milk

Be careful when you boil the milk to make the yogurt. When it gets hots, the milk rises very quickly. If you are not careful, the hot milk can easily spill over unto the stove and is a mess to clean up. After cleaning a sticky, milky stove a couple of times, I learned it is easier to watch the pot when heating milk than cleanup after it boils over.

I use a heavy 2 quart stainless steel pot that I have reserved for milk and sweets to heat milk for yogurt. Although I thought I cleaned my pots well, I had problems with funny tastes in my yogurt before I reserved a pot for this use.

The worst part of making yogurt is cleaning the dirty pot. I soak the pot and scrub it with steel wool and AJAX to get it clean.

Yogurt Flops

Occasionally yogurt fails to set because either the milk was not heated well enough or was too hot when the yogurt was added. If this happens, you can use the milk in pancakes or quiche.

Ingredients

4	Cups	Milk, 2% or whole
1/2	Cup	Dried Milk
1	Tbsp	Yogurt with active cultures
1/2	Cup	Sugar, optional

Directions

1. Using a hand held blender, blend dry milk and 1 cup milk together.
2. In a heavy pan on high heat, heat all the milk until it boils. Watch carefully to prevent it boiling over. You should see tiny bubbles forming around the edge of the pan. After this happens, the milk will rise quickly. Immediately, turn heat to low. If needed, lift pan from burner to prevent milk from boiling over.
3. Heat milk on low for 1 minute.
4. Allow milk to cool to room temperature. In container or jar, mix yogurt and milk. If desired, add sugar. Put container or jar in EasiYo or insulated container and surround with boiling water. Let sit for 8 hours. Store set yogurt in refrigerator.

Indian Cabbage with Coconut

I made this dish last night. It takes less than 10 minutes to cook once you have the vegetables chopped. Your dad says that green beans are often cooked in a similar way.

Coconut

When I was growing up, the only type of coconut I knew was Baker's sweetened shredded coconut that was used on cakes and in baked sweets. Since I did not like the sweetness and texture of this product, I thought I did not like coconut.

Since meeting your dad, I have enjoyed eating fresh and dried coconut in Indian dishes. One of the kitchen tools your grandparents brought us when they visited from India was a coconut grater.

I use dry, desiccated, powdered coconut in this recipe. You can buy this coconut at the local Ingles near the chocolate chips and other baking supplies; however, you get about twice the amount for the same cost at an Indian grocery or HMart. 

Ingredients

4	Cups	Cabbage, finely chopped
½		Onion, large, finely chopped
1		Hot pepper, serrano or jalapeño, finely chopped
2	Tbsp	Vegetable oil
¼	Cup	Coconut, dry powdered
1	Tsp	Salt
1/8 - ¼	Tsp	Cayenne pepper
1	Tbsp	Cilantro leaves, chopped

Directions

1. Heat oil on high. When hot, add onions. Cook until onion edges start to brown, about 3 minutes.
2. Turn heat down slightly. Add cabbage, hot pepper, coconut, salt, and cayenne pepper. Stir to mix. Cook about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is slightly soft.
3. Serve topped with chopped cilantro leaves.

For beans, add water in step 2, cover your pot, and slightly steam the beans. 

Indian Tomato Chutney

This is one of our favorite condiments. We use it like ketchup and dip roasted potatoes in it. I also serve it on the side with rice and lentils (i.e., dal) for a little zing. Since my kids do not like mayonnaise, they use it on their cheddar cheese sandwiches and with cream cheese on a bagel. My kids do not share their dad’s appetite for peanut butter and tomato chutney sandwiches and were surprised when he packed them for their school lunch. This recipe is based the “Tomato Chutney” recipe in Vasantha Moorthy’s The Vegetarian Menu Cookbook, a cookbook your dad brought back from one of his trips to India.

One of the things I love about growing vegetables is the opportunity to try new recipes. To avoid wasting produce, I try different ways to preserve vegetables. I first made this recipe when we had a surplus of fresh garden tomatoes. It has since become a family standard, and we usually have a jar in the refrigerator. My son has a jar in his dorm fridge, too. During the summer, I make and freeze plenty of chutney. Although I have not tried yet, I think you could can this chutney. You can buy black mustard seeds at an Indian grocery store.

Since it highlights our Indian-American heritage, this is one of the recipes we contributed to your great aunt’s 70^th birthday cookbook. We have also shared jars of this chutney with our family friends. It is a particular favorite of one of my daughter’s friends.

Ingredients

2 1/3	Pounds	Tomatoes, peeled
6		Green Chilies (Thai, Serrano or jalapeno), silt
2	Tsp	Cayenne pepper
½	Tsp	Turmeric
2/3	Cup	Vegetable oil
2/3	Cup	Vinegar
1 ½	Tbsp	Salt
1/3	Cup	Sugar
6	Cloves	Garlic
1”	Piece	Ginger
1	Tbsp	Cumin Seeds
½	Tbsp	Mustard Seeds, black preferred

Directions

1. Using a knife, make an “X” on the bottom of each tomato. Heat water until boiling in a small pot. With a slotted spoon, put each tomato in boiling water for 10 seconds. When tomatoes are cool, peel, remove stem area, and cut small tomatoes into 8 pieces and large ones into 16 pieces. Set aside in a bowl.
2. Using a hand-held bender grind garlic, ginger, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and vinegar together.
3. Heat the oil. Fry hot peppers for 1 minute. Then, slowly add ground spice mixture. Be careful since the paste splatters. Fry paste until oil surfaces.
4. Add the tomatoes and any accumulated juices. Cook until tomatoes turn soft.
5. Add the salt, sugar, cayenne pepper, and turmeric, and cook a few minutes.
6. Simmer stirring constantly until thick gravy is formed. Taste and adjust spices if necessary. I usually get your dad to taste for me. Optional, remove pepper skins from chutney.
7. Pour in a clean jar and store in the fridge or freezer.

Half Wheat Pancakes

To make our food healthier, I limit the amount of white flour I use. While I have not completely switched to whole grains, I have had success swapping part of the wheat flour for part of the white flour in many of our recipes. Our pancake recipe is based on the “Sour Milk Pancakes” recipe in Joy of Cooking Vol. 2 but uses ½ wheat and ½ white flour.

It is important to cook the pancakes at the correct temperature. It took me a long time to figure out that pancakes cook best at slightly over medium heat (between the 1^st and 2^nd of the 3 dots between medium and high) on our Maytag stove. Before this I cooked them at too high or too low temperatures, and the outside would burn before the inside was cooked.

Maytag Stove

When I was growing up Maytag was know for its dependable washers and dryers. You can check out the link http://www.characterweb.com/maytag.html to read about the Maytag company and see a vintage Maytag commercial.

However, I recommend you avoid purchasing a Maytag stove. I am dissatisfied with our Maytag gas stove, model MGR4452BDW, that we bought in 2005. The power boost burner on this gas stove works great! I had problems boiling water to cook pasta with our previous stove, and the Maytag does this well. However, the metal strip on the bottom of the oven door is rusting. It is unreasonable to use a material that rusts on a kitchen appliance that will need cleaning.

Buttermilk 

Using buttermilk produces fluffy pancakes. If you do not have buttermilk, you can mix 2 tablespoons plain yogurt in 1 cup milk or use soured milk, mix 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice in 1 cup of room temperature milk and let it sit for 5 minutes. Making pancakes is a great way to use up milk that is starting to spoil.

Ingredients

1	Cup	White flour
1	Cup	Wheat flour
2	Tsp	Sugar
1	Tsp	Salt
1 ½	Tsp	Baking powder
1	Tsp	Baking soda
2		Eggs, beaten
2	Cup	Buttermilk
1	Tbsp	Vegetable oil

Directions

1. Using a large metal mesh strainer, sift together white flour, wheat flour, sugar, salt, baking power, and baking soda.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, buttermilk, and oil.
3. Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients. Mix well. I like to use a manual egg beater for mixing. I, also, use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
4. Heat a non-stick griddle until medium hot. Pour about ¼ cup of batter for each pancake onto griddle. I cook 3 pancakes at a time.
5. Heat until bubbles appear and edges are firm. Then flip. You will need to practice to know when it is time to flip.
6. Cook on second side until done. I like to make a slash in the middle of my first pancakes to make sure they are completely cooked inside.
7. Pancakes are best served immediately after cooking. To serve later, layer pancakes between towels to keep them from getting soggy.