How to make and eat sweet and creamy dried eggplant

Grill them for juiciness, stew them for tenderness. If you soak them in salt water to remove the bitterness, eggplants can be enjoyed with a crisp texture, much like fruit. In summer, you can enjoy the firm flesh and the pop of the seeds, while in autumn, the moist, soft flesh is packed with a sweet umami flavor.

Eggplant Lovers, do you also appreciate the difference in texture and flavor between summer and autumn? With dried eggplants, you can cultivate delicious eggplant flavor all year round!

The Appeal of Convenient and Delicious Dried Eggplants

Freezing after drying allows you to enjoy eggplants for a long time!

When you dry eggplants yourself for the first time, they might turn out semi-dried, and in that state, they could spoil depending on the humidity of the storage location. That's why we recommend drying them once and then freezing them.

Even without a food dehydrator, making homemade dried eggplants is surprisingly easy! For beginners, we'll introduce a foolproof method for making dried eggplants using traditional and techniques.

Dried Eggplants Made by

1. Lightly wash the eggplants and wipe off the moisture.
2. Cut off the eggplant stems and slice them 0.5cm to 1cm thick.
3. Arrange the sliced eggplants on a drying net or rack.
4. Dry them in a sunny spot for about 2 days.

POINT
Avoid cool and humid days; dry them on hot, clear days with plenty of sunlight.

Dried Eggplants Made in the

1. Lightly wash the eggplants and wipe off the moisture.
2. Cut off the eggplant stems and slice them 0.5cm to 1cm thick.
3. Arrange the sliced eggplants on a microwave-safe dish, making sure they don't overlap.
4. Heat repeatedly for 2-3 minutes at 500w-600w until the eggplants are dry.

POINT
Do not heat for too long at once. After heating, remove the eggplant each time and check the dryness by touching it.

Incidentally, at OYAOYA, we slowly dry "Kamo eggplant," a Kyoto vegetable, at low temperatures. The dried "Kamo eggplant" is soft and tender, like grilled eggplant, and has a fruit-like sweetness.

Sweet and Tender♪ How to eat dried eggplant

Keema curry is another ground meat dish that pairs well with dried eggplant. When rehydrating dried eggplant for keema curry, yogurt can be used instead of water. You can also simmer them with mentsuyu (noodle soup base) and ginger, or pickle them in pickling liquid or a quick pickling mix.

To ensure that the concentrated sweet umami of the dried eggplant is not lost and can be utilized in cooking as a vegetable broth, it is recommended to cook dishes where you can enjoy the rehydration liquid as well.

Furthermore, if you want to cultivate a higher level of deliciousness hidden in dried eggplants, challenge yourself with the dried vegetable recipes devised by our users, using OYAOYA's melting dried "Kamo eggplant"!

Chilled Soy Milk Soup with Dried Kamo Eggplant

Ingredients

• Dried Cucumber
• Dried Kamo Eggplant
• Dried Manganji Pepper

• Dried Radish

• Salted Koji: 1 tsp
• Rice Vinegar: 1 tbsp
• Rice: 4 bowls
• Sesame Seeds: appropriate amount

Chilled Soup

• Chilled Ago-dashi (flying fish broth) 200ml
• Miso: 3.5 tbsp
• Soy Milk: 250ml
• Tofu: 150g
• Ground Sesame Seeds: 1 tbsp

Instructions

1. Make dashi and chill it (make the flavor strong). Drain the tofu.

2. Quickly wash all dried vegetables, drain them, and mix with rice vinegar. Add salt koji and mix, then let it sit to allow the flavors to meld.

3. Put miso in a pot, add dashi, and dissolve the miso. Add soy milk. Break the tofu into bite-sized pieces by hand and add. Add ground sesame seeds and mix in the vegetables from step ②.

4. Serve rice in a bowl, pour in the chilled soup from step ③, and sprinkle with ground sesame seeds (not included in the measured amount).

Kyoto Vegetable Dashi Soba

This dish combines 'dashi', a local specialty of Yamagata, with soba noodles. While it would be good to serve with warm soba in the coming season, cold soba is expected to have effects such as suppressing the rise in blood sugar after meals, improving lipid metabolism, and enhancing gut health.

Ingredients

• Dried Kamo Eggplant 10g
• Dried Cucumber 5g
• Dried Kujo Leek 5g
• Dried Shogoin Radish 5g

• Dried Tomatoes 5g

• Soba: 2 servings
• Natto Kombu (shredded kelp, finely cut kelp is also acceptable) 3g

Sauce

• Soy Sauce: 1.5 tbsp
• Mirin: 1.5 tsp
• Vinegar: 2/3 tsp
• Cane Sugar (or Kibi Sugar): 1 tsp
• Mentsuyu (noodle soup base): 4 tbsp
• Shredded Nori (optional): appropriate amount

Instructions

1. Finely chop the dried vegetables. Tear the tomatoes by hand. Cucumber is firm, so chop it especially finely. Soak the natto kombu in just enough water to cover it.
2. Combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl, add the vegetables from step ①, and mix well to let the flavors meld. Drain the rehydrated natto kombu and add it, mixing. Let it sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.
3. Boil the soba noodles and chill them in cold water.
4. Drain the soba from step ③, arrange it on a plate, and pour 2 tablespoons of mentsuyu over each plate. Top with the vegetables from step ②. Garnish with shredded nori.