Eggplants in spicy coconut sauce 'Udayana'

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• 1 eggplant(s), purple, approx. 300 g
• 4 tbsp peanut oil, refined
• 1 liter of water
• 15 g salt
• 1 tsp citric acid, crystalline
• 4 small shiitake mushrooms, dried
• 220 g water
• 1 tsp instant chicken broth
• 5 small onions, red (bawang merah)
• 3 medium-sized garlic cloves, fresh
• 2 small red chili peppers
• 10 g turmeric, fresh or frozen, alternatively 2 tbsp turmeric powder
• 4 g shrimp paste (terasi), cut from the block
• 1 tsp fish sauce, light
• 80 g coconut milk, creamy
• 2 tsp shrimp, dried (dried, salted shrimp)
• 2 tbsp peanut oil, refined
• Instant chicken broth, to taste
• Salt and pepper, freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 tbsp celery leaves, fresh or frozen
• 1 tbsp chili threads (pepperoni threads), red

Instructions

Working time approx. 40 minutes; Rest time approx. 45 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 20 minutes; Total time approx. 1 hour 45 minutes

A delicious side dish served with rice. Recipe from Lombok, Indonesia.

Wash the eggplants, trim both ends, and cut the eggplants crosswise into approximately 1 cm thick slices. Mix one liter of water with salt and citric acid. Let the slices soak in the water for 15 minutes (this draws out the bitterness from the eggplants), remove, drain, and dry on a fresh tea towel. Heat a pan. Add the peanut oil and heat until smoking hot. Brown the eggplant slices on one side, but do not roast them completely, then set aside. For the mushroom water, heat the water. Dissolve the instant broth in it and soak the shiitake mushrooms for 30 minutes. Squeeze the broth out of the mushrooms and add it to the mushroom water. Finely chop the mushroom caps, discarding the tough, hard stems. Return the mushroom pieces to the mushroom water and set aside. For the Udayana sauce, trim both ends of the onions and garlic cloves, peel them, and roughly chop them into pieces. Wash the small, red chili peppers, slice them lengthwise, remove the seeds, and quarter the pods crosswise. Discard the stems and seeds. Heat a medium-sized pan, add the peanut oil, and let it heat through. Then add the chopped onion and garlic and roast until the onion pieces become translucent. Add the chili, turmeric slices, shrimp paste (terasi), and fish sauce, and stir-fry for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat, deglaze the contents with the coconut milk, let it cool slightly, and blend until smooth. Squeeze the broth from the mushroom pieces again. Do not discard the broth. Empty the mixture from the blender into a sufficiently large pan. Mix in the dried shrimp. Rinse the blender with 170g of mushroom water and add the liquid to the pan. Add the shiitake mushroom pieces and mix. Add the prepared eggplant slices, browned side up, to the udayana sauce. Simmer with the lid on for 5 minutes, then season with chicken stock and pepper to taste. Transfer the dish to a serving bowl, garnish, and serve with white rice.