Green Thai eggplant salad duo

The dainty shape of the green and round Thai eggplant and its crispy refreshing taste leads me to imagine turning it into a mini salad bowl of some sort. So I decided to try out two ideas of fillings: a tuna mayonnaise, and a chicken satay. The good thing about this eggplant is that it is easy to de-core, and it gives a sturdy bowl of very thin wall (1/8" think) and a large cavity. So each eggplant can hold quite a bit of fillings.


Recipe: Green Thai eggplant salad appetizer (make 4)


Ingredients:

- 4 medium round green Thai eggplants, pick the fresh and sturdy ones

For tuna mayonnaise filling:
- 2 tablespoon (TB) mayonnaise

- 3 TB tuna flakes
- a few drops lemon or lime juice
- 2-3 cranberries, cut to small pieces
- 2 teaspoon (tp) finely chopped purple and white onions
- 1 tp finely chopped celery
- dash of pepper


For satay chicken filling:
- 1 TB satay sauce
- 2 tp sesame oil
- 3 TB chopped cooked chicken meat
- 2 tp coarsely ground cashew pieces
- 1 tp chopped purple and white onions
- 2 tp chopped green onions


Procedure:
Cut each eggplant at about 4/5 of its height from the bottom. Use a corer to remove seed pod and leave a shell of about 1/8" thick. It takes some patience. If desired, save the seeds to be mixed with the salad filling. Mix the ingredients of each salad separately, and stuff the eggplants.

The tuna mayonnaise salad has a good mix of fresh vegetable and fruit taste, which blends in smoothly with the crispy, unassuming texture of the eggplant. The satay salad has quite a bit of a crunch and a spicy sweetness unique to the Southeast Asian cuisines. These two salads go very well with the Thai eggplant, and make a wonderful duo appetizer.