I stopped in at an Indian grocery store this weekend (rare occurrence as you can probably tell with the lack of Punjabi recipes on my blog) and picked up these wonderful little eggplants, amongst other things.

I really wanted to use the eggplants in some sort of Thai flavours, but I forgot to pick up basil, so I decided to get creative using the frozen basil cubes from my freezer. I considered this experiment to be extremely successful – this season, I think I might freeze up thai basil cubes as well to allow for a quick stirfry.

Ingredients

• 1 stick rice noodles (my favourite are Annie Chun’s Brown Rice Noodles)
• 6 baby eggplants cut into wedges
• 1/2 white onion sliced in thick strips
• 1 green pepper cut into thick strips

For the sauce:

• 1 frozen basil cube
• 1 tbsp mushroom flavoured soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 4 to 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 to 2 thai chilies

Instructions

1. Start by soaking the rice noodles in warm water – when using these noodles in a stirfry, I find the consistency to be much better as opposed to boiling them.  They remain slightly undercooked, but throwing them into the pan right before serving keeps them from being too gummy.
2. Using a little bit of oil, allow the eggplant to cook well. I like my eggplant to be fully cooked through and don’t enjoy biting into undercooked pieces.
3. Add in the peppers and onions and turn off the heat to allow the residual heat to slightly cook the peppers and onions – unlike the eggplant, I enjoy a bit of crunch in the other veggies.
4. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce together in a bowl – if it seems too thick, add a bit of water.
5. Drain the rice noodles and mix the sauce into the noodles until they are well coated.
6. Add the noodles in with the vegetables, turn up the heat and gently toss it all together.