Foodandthefabulous

Brown Rice Salad with Almonds, Grilled & Sautéed Baby Aubergine, Ginger and Lemon

with pretty spoon from a friend in Poland

Upon return from our week to my folks in Natal, I brought back a few difficult-to-find vegetables, including these adorable baby aubergine. They would be lovely sliced, dipped in chilli-bite (bhajia) batter and deep-fried as a crunchy snack, served with a cumin infused thick yoghurt dip.

However, a week of catch up eating later (which, I’m so looking forward to telling you about, including a “world famous prawn curry”), my body put the brakes on. When it speaks, I try my darndest to listen.

So upon return to Cape Town we started off with frozen fruit and matcha smoothies, nuts and seeds and raw vegetables. For the first week. Mostly.

This crunchy, wholesome salad uses brown basmati rice (use whatever type of brown or wild rice you have), aubergine done in two ways - griddled with minimal oil, and also sautéed with ginger and garlic in nothing more than water. It’s not short on flavour though, with spring onions, lemon and lemon zest as well as a lovely balsamic glaze.

If you like, drizzle more olive oil over (an infused oil like lemon olive oil, will just take it up a notch or two).

The gorgeous spoon is from my darling friend Gata, who sent it in a Christmas parcel. It’s by artisan tradesmen from the Tatras (Tatry) Mountain region. The heart had mine melting.

Recipe at Food and the Fabulous