Eggplant with yuzu and bonito

Japanese aubergine with yuzu and bonitoJapanese aubergine with yuzu and bonito

Years back, while travelling in rural China, we realised that the best stir-fries are a lot like the best Italian pastas – minimal ingredients, simple technique, allowing the produce to shine. It’s true of this dish from Japan, too. (But in case those two foreign words in the title are mysterious: yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit that I think you can only have fresh here in Australia if you grow it. However, in the Japanese sections of Asian grocers you can buy bottles of yuzu concentrate, which works wonderfully here. Hunt it out – so delicious! While you’re there, search the shelves for bonito flakes, which are fine shavings of dried fish famously used in dashi broth, but which also make a magical, delicately fishy garnish. You can get them in convenient serving-sized sachets.) Continue reading Eggplant with yuzu and bonito

Tomato sambal

tomato sambalingredients for tomato sambal

The last month of autumn might seem the wrong month for thinking about tomatoes. Happy days of tomato and chive sandwiches with different coloured cherry tomatoes from our garden are well and truly finished, and there are no more meals accompanied by our favourite zucchini, tomato and basil stew. Continue reading Tomato sambal

Eggplant, tomato and basil pasta

Eggplant, tomato and basil pasta

The veggie garden is looking decidedly bare and wintery now that I’ve finally pulled out the tomato bushes and collected the very last ripening tomatoes. It’s the end of a process of watching the garden build up and up in a frenzy over summer – the plants growing taller as the weather gets hotter – then watching things come down again piece by piece as the sun slips back in the sky and it starts getting chilly. Continue reading Eggplant, tomato and basil pasta