Szechuan Eggplant, Restyled

We had a recipe for Szechuan Eggplant which required the eggplant to be soaked in water, deep fried, then soaked in water again, then simmered with a hot red sauce.  Yes, it's worth it, but there must be a less arduous, less caloric way to create this dish.  It's so good that I bought a dozen long eggplant to make more and experiment a bit.

Instead of frying, we decided to roast the eggplant -- even though this means we lose the lovely opalescent purply color of the skin.  We scored the skin side; the flavor of the sauce doesn't penetrate the skin side, otherwise.  Plus, not only does it not pull the flesh of the eggplant so it falls apart, but it's easier to chew the skin when it's already scored.  Be careful not to overcook, or it goes mushy.

While roasting, chop up ginger, garlic, and scallions.  Heat a wok and drizzle a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil.  When the oil starts to smoke, add these vegetables and stir-fry till wilted and the mixture is bright green in color.

Add gochujan paste, soy sauce, red wine vinegar and water to loosen up the mixture.

When the eggplant are browned and still hot, toss with the sauce to coat.  If you wish, you can simmer in the sauce for a few minutes, but we'd forgotten to do this step previously and it was still delicious.  Finish with a drizzle of toasted sesame oil.

It's great on it's own as a main course offering with some rice or noodles.  Or as a sandwich filling.

Tail o' Poolish

Baguettes are a sort of benchmark of bread making; croissants are, too.  They are a basic bread, consisting of flour, water, yeast only.  They require more knowhow than they require technique, and time is needed to develop flavor.

The flavor comes from poolish, an analog to a sourdough starter, and if you skimp of the required 15 hours, the baguette won't have the expected flavor.  Fear not -- you need to remember to start the poolish so many hours ahead, but otherwise, it's nothing special, other than to not poke at it or keep looking at it.  Forget it for 15 hours, seriously.

The other thing that is important is the forming and slashing of the dough.  In bread competitions, the crumb of the bread is important, as well as the lack of any evidence that the dough has been overworked or "abused."  So, despite what we may have learned about kneading bread dough, you really do need to pay attention to the dough.

Slashing the cuts is a bit like creating a stretchmark -- you are creating a weak spot so the bread can "bloom" out and form into a uniform shape without ripping or cracking in an unattractive or destructional manner.  it's a little counterintuitive, so the first ones should be about following and replicating the masters till you "get it."  like gru.

right out of the oven -- two baguettes with nice slashmarks
and one row of rolls called the dragon tail 

the dragon tail rolls are cut like epi rolls, but the tails are folded
back onto the roll.  the resulting row of rolls resembles
the spine of some mythical reptile ;)

to eat, pull the dragon tail "vertebrae" apart

nice creamy looking crumb!