We have been away from this space, dedicated followers. I know you noticed. But
our absence means refreshed and re-invigorated vegie lovers sit before you,
once again ready to bring you the best of our early morning vegie cooking,
illustrated.
Jade, sadly, was unwell. For a long time. But has recovered. Yay. Check out what
she has been doing here.
I went to Bali. It was hot and every morning our small hotel laid on noodles, fried
rice, cap cay (vegies, sautéed/steamed in stock) and mixed vegie omelettes,
with or without chilli. All the staff and locals living in the hotel ate savoury
breakfast, leaving the toast and jam, pancakes, croissants, muffins and fruit
platters for the tourists.
I am bursting to share some of what I ate and cooked with you, but back here,
today, the season still draws me to warmer brekkies, the chill in the morning
pushing me away from cold and crunchy.
I will share with you a sambal recipe- a roasted vegetable sauce, pounded to a
paste to top smoky, charred eggplant, with a hint of kaffir lime and chilli,
reminding us that warmer weather is coming.
Sambal Tuwung (Roasted eggplant with sambal)
You’ll need a mortar and pestle, mixing bowl, tongs, knife and chopping board.
2 eggplant
3 long, red chilli
2 tomatoes
5 cloves garlic, peeled
2 kaffir lime (or regular lime is fine)
2 kaffir lime leaves
1 teaspoon grated palm sugar
salt
Blacken and cook the whole eggplant over your high gas flame (if your extraction
fan can handle it!) until soft, smoky and collapsed. Lift into a bowl with tongs and
cover with plastic wrap to steam off the skin. Roast, whole, the tomatoes, chilli
and garlic, in a hot oven (220c), then remove, cover and steam as instructed
above. Leave to cool to room temperature.
Alternatively, the eggplant can also be roasted, whole in the oven as well. Or, if
you have a grill style barbecue, use this for all the ingredients.
Skin the eggplant and tear into strips over a bowl, saving all the juices,
discarding crusty charred skin.
Grind the peeled and de-seeded chilli, skinned tomatoes, garlic and palm sugar
in your mortar and pestle to a chunky paste. Finely shred the kaffir lime leaves,
and mix all together with the eggplant, the tomato/chilli/garlic paste, the juice of
two kaffir limes and salt. Taste and adjust the sweet, salty, sour seasoning as
required- adding more palm sugar, lime juice or salt as desired.
The sambal alone can be kept and used for up to a week, and is perfect for any
grilled or roasted vegies, including sweet potato and pumpkin, or sautéed
greens, even to jazz up plain rice. I would suggest doubling or tripling the sambal
recipe- larger volume makes pounding it easier and you’ll have leftover sambal
to use straight away. Trust me, you’ll want to.
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