Spaghetti Teriyaki
Spaghetti Teriyaki
Equipment
- Measuring Equipment (Cup/Tablespoon/Teaspoon)
- Wok/Deep Frying Pan
- Slotted Spoon
- Bowl
- Sauce Pot
- Strainer
Ingredients
- 500 Grams Spaghetti (1 lb)
- ½ Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 Head Garlic (thinly sliced)
- 3-8 Eggplants (depending on the size)
- 2 Teaspoons Black Pepper (divided)
- 1 Tablespoon Dried Red Chili Peppers
- 2 Tablespoon Mirin
- 1 Cup Teriyaki Sauce (235g)
Instructions
- Wash the eggplants and set them aside.
- Add three quarters of the extra virgin olive oil to the wok/frying pan.
- Thinly slice a full head of garlic and add to the wok/frying pan.
- On medium heat, fry the garlic until it starts to brown.
- Remove the garlic from the oil with a slotted spoon and put aside a bowl for later use.
- Evenly slice the eggplant, about 1mm (half inch) in thickness. Uniform slices will help the eggplant cook at the same speed.
- Add to the eggplant slices to the garlic flavored olive oil. Be careful not to over crowd the wok/frying pan.
- Use the remainder of the olive oil to coat the top area of the eggplant slices.
- Dust the top of the eggplant slices with 1teaspoon of the black pepper.
- Cook on a medium heat for around 10 to15 minutes, until the bottoms start to brown.
- While the eggplant is frying, start heating the water for the spaghetti.
- Flip the eggplant slices and the dust them again with the other teaspoon of black pepper.
- Turn the heat on wok/frying pan to high.
- Cook for 3 minutes.
- Add the chili peppers and then mirin.
- Make sure the eggplant slices don’t stick to wok/frying pan or that they don’t burn.
- Cook for another 2 minutes on high and then reduce the heat.
- Optionally, you can drain excess olive oil out of the wok/frying pan.
- Add the teriyaki sauce and the cooked garlic to the eggplant slices.
- Make sure all the slices are coated in the sauce.
- Set the heat to low and let it simmer for 5 minutes.
- Drain the spaghetti and then portion it out on the plate dry.
- Add the eggplant teriyaki on top.
Notes
Fusion Failure
I’m not one for fusion dishes. Generally, I think they are hard to pull off. The concept is nice, taking the best of one culture and copulating it with the best of another. Sadly, in reality this tends to fail. You end with some weird reject that doesn’t adhere to cultural norms. In short, you end up wishing you had done one or the other. This Spaghetti Teriyaki dish bucks all that!
In fact, this is our go to dish when we have couch surfers coming to stay with us, or when we’re going to cook in someone else’s house, or when we having people over for a lunch. You get the idea.
There are a few reasons why we like doing this dish for company. It’s vegan, yet it’s stratify for meat eaters. You don’t need many ingredients. It’s super simple to scale up or down. It’s really easy to make. It doesn’t take much time. You don’t need any fancy equipment to pull this off. It’s very forgiving to mistakes. It doesn’t break the bank.
East Finally Meets West in Spaghetti Teriyaki
The one hitch to this dish is getting the right teriyaki sauce. You need something with a thick viscosity that is not overly sweet. In Japan we use Kikkoman, which is available in most every supermarket.
Outside of Japan it’s hard to say. I’ve had bad luck finding teriyaki sauce that works well for this recipe. It’s usually too thin and far too sweet.
The obvious solution is to just make your own. This is a cooking website after all.
The other ingredient that might cause you some grief finding is mirin. This is not a make or break situation, so don’t worry. If you can’t find it, you can substitute it with cooking sake. Baring that, you can use a white cooking wine. I’ve done this a number of times and I can hardly tell. You also just omit this one, and the it should still come out pretty good.
You might think you’re turning Japanese when you eat this delicious dish.