Lawson is much better with the wok than I am, so he usually does the stir-frying around here. He's fun to watch. As you can see here, he moves at superhero speed.
He roasted the eggplant first to soften it -- without precooking, it seems to stay tough and soak up too much oil. He then stir-fried onions, okra, the roasted eggplant, and tomato in some chile-garlic-basil paste he made last year. A little fish sauce, chicken broth, and fresh Thai basil finished it. We served it over plain white rice.
The chile-garlic-basil paste is based on this amazing product we found at the local Asian market a few years ago: Por Kwan brand sweet chile basil paste. It consists of basil leaves, garlic, fresh chiles, salt, and oil. The Por Kwan is almost as good as Lawson's garden-sourced reproduction.
7 comments:
Eva & Lawson,
So I was wondering: When is Cooking Habit opening up its YouTube Channel?
"Televise," like Calla says. Because this here "Thai Stir-Fried Okra, Eggplant & Tomatoes," with the eggplant prepped beforehand so as to prevent its being a sop (the telling touch of a pair of gen-u-wine aficionados);--well, this is just too good.
--Mark
Incidentally--forgot to mention--I now have Cooking Habit on my BlogRovR Firefox plug-in thing.
--M
Hey Mark! Looking forward to your visit in a couple of weeks. We'll prep the eggplant beforehand.
L
As luck would have it, I just got some okra from the farmers' market. Do you have any other suggestions for how to prepare it? It's not exactly a Colorado delicacy, and I want to do it justice.
Oh my goodness, I have so much to say about okra. I'll make an okra post this weekend, I promise. The greatest okra of all is steamed, but if the pods aren't fresh enough or you oversteam it, you could be turned off to okra for quite some time. But if it's fresh and bright green, go ahead and steam it for about 4 minutes , salt it, and eat it whole as finger food. I do believe it is among my three favorite vegetables.
Eva,
I must say, I have never heard such a passionate description of the subtle flavors of okra! You do for okra what a sommelier does for an understated wine.
Katherine
Thanks, Katherine! You know, you and The Great Redhead Hope live in the same town, so if it turns out she found acceptable okra, you might be able to find it, too.
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