Description: You may call it “Japanese ratatouille”. We do not use tomato sauce, but we use soy sauce and soak vegetables in it. You can chill it and serve. It has a smooth and cold texture on the tongue. Wonderful dish in summer or hot weather.
Serves: 2
Cooking time: 20 minutes + (depending on chilling time)
Ingredients
- Green pepper – chopped, 1 small pieces or 80g
- Aubergine – chopped, 1 piece or 200g
- Bonito flake – 2 tablespoons
- Soy sauce – 1 tablespoon
- Mirin cooking wine – 1 tablespoon
- Sake cooking wine – 1 tablespoon
- Sesame oil (alternatively, sunflower oil) – 1 tablespoon
- Water – 100mL
Method
1. In a non-stick frying pan, add the sesame oil and cook the aubergine and green pepper.
2. In a separate pot, add the bonito flake, mirin, soy sauce, sake and water and boil.
3. Add no.1 into no.2 and mix well.
4. Chill it in the fridge until it gets cold.
To serve: Top it up with additional bonito flake according to your personal preference.
Nutritional Values Per Serving
| Kcal | Protein | Fat | Carbs | Fibre | Sugars | Salt | Saturated Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 118.6 | 2.5g | 7.1g | 11.9g | 3.7g | 6.8g | 1.4g | 1.0g |
| 5.9% | 5.0% | 10.1% | 4.6% | 12.5% | 7.5% | 22.9% | 5.1% |
Nutritional Tips
In Japan, there are 4 clear seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) and people like to enjoy each season’s specialities. So this dish is one of the summer specialities. In summer, asparagus, edamame, cucumber, courgette, tomatoes, aubergine, corn, peppers, lettuce, cherries, pear, grapes, peach, melon, ayu (Japanese trout), horse mackerel, eel, green beans are popular. There are more seasonal fresh vegetables in summer compared to winter. But thanks to the human knowledge, efforts and techniques in recent years, you can get most food off-season.
There are different colours of aubergines, I have seen dark purple, white and green ones. I just like the standard purple ones, but I heard there are red ones as well. One day, I would like to try red aubergine. I personally feel that aubergines taste much nicer in summer. It’s difficult to express “how good”, but I feel that there is more moisture. In addition, they absorb the taste better, so when aubergine is nicely cooked, it is really tender and smooth. Aubergine is versatile and there are many ways to add it to your diet: stir-fried vegetables, curry, tempura, baked, stuffed with meat, roasted, pasta or miso soup. I will introduce more recipes another time.
Mignonne Nutri-Cuisine 