This is a flavor-bomb of a recipe and one of my new favorite ways to cook eggplant. This recipe calls for udon noodles, but I think this would be equally good with soba. Adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi.

Ingredients

• ½ cucumber
• 3 spring onions
• 2 eggplants
• 250 ml sunflower oil, plus 1 T extra
• Salt
• 100g shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 T chopped ginger
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 120g walnuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped
• 2 T white miso
• 150ml dashi
• 3 T mirin
• 2 T soy sauce
• 1 T caster sugar
• 1 T sake
• 250g udon noodles

Instructions

1. Cut the cucumber into long, thin, 2mm-thick strips and set aside to chill.
2. Cut the spring onions in half from top to bottom, then cut into thin julienne. Place in a bowl of iced water and chill.
3. Cut eggplant into 2.5cm discs, then cut each disc into four.
4. Heat 250ml oil in a ­medium pan and deep-fry the ­eggplant in batches until golden and cooked through.
5. Transfer to a colander, sprinkle with a little salt and leave to drain.
6. In a bowl, whisk together miso, dashi, mirin, soy sauce, sugar, and sake.
7. Put the shallots and remaining oil in a large pan and sauté on medium heat until they soften.
8. Add the ginger and garlic, then cook on low heat for five minutes.
9. Add the walnuts and fried eggplant, stir and set aside.
10. Add sauce to pan and cook heated through and there is some evaporation.
11. Cook the noodles as ­instructed on the packet.
12. While the noodles are cooing, drain cucumber and spring onions.
13. Serve individual portions of hot noodles, topped with walnut sauce and sprinkled with cucumber and spring onions.