Vietnamese Salt and Pepper Eggplant

Submitted by Ricky Henry-Davies

"We had this dish in a vietnamese restaurant recently its crunchy on the outside and the eggplant is soft like butter on the inside! Great for dinner parties or a great snack with cold beers.Sensational!"

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 9
• Yields: 2 12
• Serves: 4-6

ingredients

• 2 eggplants
• 75 g plain flour
• 100 g rice flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup soda water
• 2 limes
• 3 tablespoons pepper
• 3 tablespoons salt
• 2 cups oil

directions

1. mix freshly ground pepper and salt together set aside.
2. peel eggplant and slice into finger sized pieces - not too thick.
3. sift and mix flours with baking soda.
4. add iced soda water slowly till consistency of pouring cream.
5. heat oil in wok or deep fryer.
6. dust eggplant with flour dip in batter thin coating
7. fry in batches till golden.
8. sprinkle with salt n pepper mixture.
9. serve with wedges of limes
10. optional add egg to flour for softer batter.
11. add chili to batter for extra zing.

Reviews

[Rob of Roenne]

Ricky A great dish, well. I used grape seed oil to deep fry it in my wok. In the interests of Kaizen I made three simple modifications: 1. I substituted 1tsp of szechaun pepper (flower pepper, buy from and Asian grocery, heat it before grinding to release the flavours)for a tsp of the black peppercorns. I then dry fried both to release the aroma. These were then ground and added to the salt. 2. I used finger eggplants cut into 1/8th inch slices 3. I made the batter a bit thinner (like crap supermarket cheap cream) by adding another 50ml of soda. The end result was absolutely fantastic.