Cold Marinated Eggplant 冷製レンジなすのポン酢漬け

We recently got Japanese (or Asian) eggplant from Weee. Although  I posted quite a few dishes using eggplant, we have not had eggplant for a long time. We really love “grilled eggplant” or Yakinasu 焼きなす, it requires a charcoal fire to make it correctly, however. I decided to take a short cut and cook the eggplant in the microwave oven. I then marinated the cooked eggplant (see below) overnight in the refrigerator.

Just before serving, I topped it with “katusobushi” 鰹節 bonito flakes. This is very easy to make and tasted pretty good. This is loosely based on a recipe I read on line sometime ago but I could not find the original recipe so I made the dish from memory.

Ingredients:
One Japanese eggplant (picture below).
3 tbs ponzu shouyu ポン酢醤油
1/2 tbs or more to taste, x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce
1/4 tsp dark sesame oil
2 stalks of scallion, finely chopped

Directions:
First make the marinade mixing the ponzu, noodle sauce, sesame oil and scallion.
Cut off the stem end of the egg plant and peel the skin
Since it was too long to fit into the silicon microwave container, I cut it into two pieces and microwaved it 2-2.5 minutes until cooked and soft (in the picture below, I made the indentation when I pressed it to see if it was done).
I cut the cooked eggplant in to long strips and then cut crosswise into bite sized pieces
I placed the hot eggplant into the marinade
I sealed the container and refrigerated it for a few hours or overnight (I like overnight marination)

Just before serving, top the eggplant with bonito flakes.

This is a very easy to make and tastes pretty good. Its a perfect small appetizer dish to go with sake.