Last night I made the Stir-Fried Eggplant with Sake and Miso recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

This may be the first recipe to call for miso, but it’s definitely the first one to call for shichimi togarashi. While I can easily find miso, the shichimi togarashi has been harder to track down. I had some on hand because I’ve come across recipes that called for it, but was unable to locate any. YDFM doesn’t carry it, and I wasn’t confident in what I found at my local Asian market. I finally spotted it in a small packet at the Buford Highway Farmers Market labelled in English in very small text on the back. I snagged it immediately. Now that I know what it is, I should re-examine the product at my local Asian market to see if it’s the same.

Much like last week’s Sichuan-Style Fish-Fragrant Eggplant, this dish brines the eggplant before cooking to keep it from absorbing all the oil in the stir-fry. The overall approach was very simple, but with different aromatics and sauce ingredients.

The finished dish was tasty, with a much more subtle flavor than the Sichuan-Style Fish-Fragrant Eggplant. Not the best eggplant I’ve ever had, but I’ll definitely make it again. My wife ranked this dish third after last week’s and eggplant parm.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.