Recipe Club. The Eggplant Edition

This year Chef David Chang started a spin off podcast to his original Dave Chang Show called Recipe Club. Chang and his friend, fellow foodie and food writer, Chris Ying, invite various chefs and food writers to join them on the show and spin a wheel of various food ingredients that results in a bit of a home cook-off. Each week, after much heated discussion and hilarious debate, they choose a winner among the recipes and post all three to a page called All the Recipes from "‘Recipe Club’ . Quite a few people post their results and modifications to the Recipe Club Facebook Page (including me from time to time although I can be a little shy about it).

I made two dishes last night based on the selected episode’s chosen ingredient, eggplant. All three recipes sounded great, but I went with Dave’s winning selection, Yu xiang qie zi (or Fish-Fragrant Eggplants even though there is no fish involved at all). I actually merged two recipes; one being Dave’s selected recipe from Australia’s Gourmet Traveller and Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipe posted to the website Serious Eats. I often cross the streams as I either like the mixing and matching of ingredients and various processes. I suppose I am a bit of a sucker for punishment in the kitchen, but I like puttering about in there at the end of the day for pandemic therapeutic reasons. Oh yes, I also decided to make a super hot and savory cornstarch dusted/crusted dish called Black Pepper Tofu that was also passed on via Serious Eats .

So much tasty heat and eating joy for a Friday night!
I hope you get to try either of the dishes as they are quite simple to make!