On a daily basis at Izakaya Den, head chef Jarrod Di Blasi pulls off a neat trick. Presented to diners as a Japanese eggplant salad, the eatery’s signature dish actually hides its hero ingredient below the surface of a dark pool of dressing, afloat with cucumbers and rice puffs. When your chopsticks dive in, though, out comes eggplant roasted to resemble noodles.
“It almost looks like a tidal pool,” says Di Blasi. “You don’t know what’s underneath until you start pulling out the eggplant.” Between the noodle-like eggplant and assorted dots of rice puffs, he likens the effect to an emerging octopus.
The dish was inspired by the vegan offerings Di Blasi oversaw in his previous role at Ezard. So when he took over as head chef at Izakaya Den, he decided to devise two new set menus – one vegan and one for omnivores, that mirror each other, dish by dish. (He simply adds katsuobushi (bonito flakes) to the dressing in the omnivore version of the salad). In either incarnation, it’s become a calling card.
“We found in the first few months people were going absolutely nuts for it,” says Di Blasi. “So it just stayed on.”
Beyond the eggplant, the real hero of the dish is the ginger tosazu, a Japanese dressing combining rice wine vinegar, mirin, soy sauce, kombu (kelp) and katsuobushi (bonito flakes). Often served with a side of rainbow pepper tempura with sancho pepper, Di Blasi says it also pairs nicely with another Japanese mainstay: shochu.
The oldest Japanese spirit (it dates back to the 15th century), shochu (pronounced “show-chew”) is a clean, clear spirit more popular in Japan than sake. It’s also lower in calories and alcohol than many other spirits on the market.
Di Blasi says a Koyomi Chu-Hi Presse cocktail – a citrus-driven “chuhai” [schochu highball combining one part Koyomi Shochu with three parts sparkling lemon soda and a squeeze of fresh lime – is an ideal partner to his fresh eggplant dish.
Because the Koyomi expression is single-distilled, it delivers a crisp, subtle sweetness and notable fruity scent to the highball. And at only 25% ABV (alcohol by volume), it matches the lightness of the dish well.
“This dish is super light and summery,” says Di Blasi. “The ginger tosazu has salty notes from the soy, the kombu for umami and depth, and the mirin for sweetness. It’s a really balanced dressing, but it doesn’t have many citrus notes. [So] against the citrus notes in the drink, it will be amazing.”
Both the dish and drink are easy to make at home, especially since Di Blasi has tweaked his recipe to condense the 24-hour marinating time for the eggplant into a more manageable two hours. To make it vegan, simply leave out the bonito flakes.
Koyomi Chu-Hi Presse
Makes 1 serve. Approx. 0.6 standard drinks.
Ingredients:
1 part Shochu
3 part Sparkling Lemon Soda
Squeeze of Lime
Method:
Pour Koyomi Shochu over ice in a highball glass. Top with lemon soda. Garnish with a squeeze of fresh lime. Serve.
Jarrod Di Blasi’s Japanese Eggplant Salad With Ginger Tosazu
Serves 4
Prep/cook time: 2 hours (including marinating)
Ingredients:
6 large Japanese or Lebanese eggplants
500ml ginger tosazu
4 baby cucumbers
50g toasted buckwheat
Ginger Tosazu
80ml rice wine vinegar
60ml mirin, alcohol burned off
100ml light soy sauce
250ml cold water
3cm knob ginger, finely grated
15g kombu
8g katsuobushi
Method:
For the ginger tosazu, place the rice wine vinegar, mirin and light soy in a stainless steel pan. Add the cold water and the kombu, bring to a simmer and then remove from heat. Add the katsuobushi to the pan and let it cool slowly. Leave to sit for a minimum of 1 hour.
Once completely cool, remove the kombu and strain through cheesecloth, squeezing any excess liquid from the katsuobushi. Discard the contents in the cloth and pour the tosazu liquid into a stainless steel container, then stir in the finely grated ginger. Reserve in the refrigerator until ready to use. It will keep, chilled, for 1 month.
To prepare the eggplant, preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the eggplant on an oven tray lined with grease-proof paper and lightly coat with oil spray. Bake for 16–18 minutes or until just cooked. Once cool enough to handle, cut the tops off the eggplant on a cutting board, then slice each down the middle lengthways. Using your hands with gloves on, peel the flesh of the eggplant away from the skin from top to bottom of each cut half. Interestingly, this should shred away to resemble rustic eggplant noodles.
Pour the ginger tosazu over the eggplant noodles and marinate in an airtight container in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
To serve, pour the eggplant noodle flesh and the remaining ginger tosazu form the container into a shallow bowl. Wash then slice the baby cucumbers half a centimetre thick, arrange facing up in and around the eggplant flesh. Evenly scatter the toasted buckwheat over the whole dish and serve immediately.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Koyomi. 700ml Koyomi Shochu is available at leading liquor stores for $45 RRP and in a selection of bars and restaurants.
