Fried Eggplant with Lemon-Shouyu Dip

Eggplants can get too expensive here off-season, with two small pieces ranging from about two hundred to two hundred and fifty yen. Yes, two small pieces. Sad. My husband and I love eggplant. So whenever it is cheap, we hoard eggplants to amounts that will hopefully make us less in love with it. Though it seems, you cannot have too many-a-eggplant. ​Once we've turned half of our eggplant stock into pasta sauces and omelets and nasu dengaku and all, I started feeling like I haven't actually tasted these eggplants. I tasted the sauces, not the eggplant; so I suddenly craved for this simple tasting eggplant. Well, honestly, it's just fried eggplant enhanced by dipping it lightly in lemon and soy sauce mix. Not at all a balanced meal, but it makes my heart sigh with warm content when this dish brings me back the memories of my old hometown where, several times in my life, I have hungrily but happily eaten lunch at two in the afternoon with my younger sister.

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Ingredients

• 1 small eggplant, cut in desired shape and size

• 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce/ shouyu

• 1 tbsp 100% lemon juice

Procedure

1. Fry eggplant until desired doneness.

2. Drain out excess oil from eggplant using a metal strainer or a sturdy kitchen napkin.

3. On a small bowl, mix the lemon and shouyu (just the Japanese term for soy sauce; but it also is more flavorful than cheap, regular soy sauce; I always use kikkoman brand)

4. Serve freshly fried eggplant beside lemon-shouyu sauce!

Tips and Tricks

If you don't have lemon and shouyu, regular soy sauce and whatever citrus (like lime or calamansi) will do the trick! Who's with me in "toyo-mansi all you eggplant and fried tofu"?