Eggplant with black pepper sauce
Recipe by Ben Sears
Serves 2
A profusion of tastes and textures: punchy black pepper sauce redolent of garlic and chilli atop tender eggplant with silky cashew cream and crisp curry leaves.
2 eggplants
Handful curry leaves
Olive oil, to fry
Black pepper sauce
150g butter
8 eschalots, finely sliced
12 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 red chilli, finely chopped
50g light soy sauce
30g dark soy sauce
3 tablespoons cracked black pepper
100g oyster sauce
30g sugar
300g shao xing rice wine
Cashew cream
250g cashews, lightly toasted
250g cold water
70g grapeseed oil
20g brown rice vinegar
10g sugar
Pinch salt
For black pepper sauce, melt butter in a wok over high heat. Add eschallots and stir fry for three to four minutes until fragrant and beginning to colour. Add garlic and chilli and cook for one minute. Add soy sauces, pepper, oyster sauce and sugar and continue to stir fry over high high. Add rice wine, reduce heat to low and cook for five minutes until alcohol flavour is cooked out.
For cashew cream and curry leaf, place all ingredients except curry leaves in a Smeg hand blender mini chopper and blend until smooth.
Pre-heat oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
Bake eggplants for 30 minutes until cooked through. Cool, halve and peel.
Heat a small amount of olive oil in a frying pan, add curry leaves and fry until crisp and translucent.
To serve, place eggplant on a plate, pour over black pepper sauce and serve a dollop of cashew cream, sprinkled with curry leaves.
Recipe created with the Smeg hand blender.
