agebitashi a.k.a. 'the delicious'

here is a reciepe that i recently tried at home after ordering it over and over again at the tokyo diner. it's pretty simple, provided you have acess to an asian supermarket that stocks the right ingredients, and i think it's pretty healthy too.

you will need:
1-2 eggplants (aubergines)
lotus root (i bought mine pre sliced and frozen, but you could get it fresh)
spring onions, sliced
2 dried chillies, chopped
3 cups dashi soup
3 tsp. soy sauce
3 tsp. mirin (or some type of japanese sake/rice wine)
1 tsp. sugar
salt
corn oil or canola oil for frying (both have a really high smoking point and the lowest saturated fat)

slice the eggplant into long strips lengthwise, you should get about 6-8 per veg, and make a few shallow, diagonal slits in the back of the skin. soak the pieces in luke warm salted water for 10-15 minutes to remove bitterness. i added my frozen lotus to this mixture too, to help it thaw. if you are buying your lotus root fresh, you may want to soak it in rice vinegar to remove it's bitterness, or you can mix everything together.
while they soak, mix the dashi, soy, sugar, mirin, chillis, and spring onions together. be careful what kind of dashi you get, mine was concentrated, so i only needed a bit and then added a lot of water to it. the end mixture should be a medium brown color.
add an inch of oil to a deep frying pan and heat the oil to about 350 degrees. to test to see if the oil is hot enough, put the end of a wooden chopstick in it, if it bubbles, it's probably hot enough.
dry all the veg before you begin frying, the water will make the oil spatter. i cooked only two pieces at a time because any more can lower the oil temp too much and it won't work properly. each piece only needs to be in for 30 - 60 seconds really, they should cook fairly quickly.
when you are done frying, put all the veg in a bowl and cover them in the sauce, then refrigerate them for at least half an hour, though i think longer would make them taste nicer.
serve in a bowl with a little sauce and a bowl of white rice as a side. and save the sauce for next time!

*note: the picture above is this dish, i think, but with some other rice dumpling added, i thought it would be helpful though to see the color of the broth and the presentation.