Yam Makeua Yang (Grilled Aubergine Salad)

This is a very healthy dish, which is fine but we ate it along with deep fried garlicky pork- khao moo tod gratiem (which will be the next post) so all was good! You could say this was the vegetarian brother of laab (chopped meat salad) as there's a lot of similar herbs and flavours used but none of the guilt. There's beautiful smoky flavours from the charred aubergine which goes great with anise and mint in the herbs and salty/sour sauce.

This doesn't take too long to make and the standard purple mediterranean aubergine does the job just fine in this case. Small Thai eggplants would be way to costly to make this dish in the UK due to how many you'd need. Long thin Asian eggplants/aubergines are another good (and more affordable option).

For a bowl of Yam Makeua (which is a perfect side dish for 2) use:

• 1 large purple aubergine/ 3 thin Asian/ 8 Thai
• 4 shallots, peeled and sliced
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 2 red chillies, sliced
• 2 boiled eggs (optional but always nice)
• a large handful of fragrant herbs- I've used sweet Thai basil (bai horapha) and mint
• juice of 1 lime
• a big splash of fish sauce or light soy sauce

Put your aubergine(s) on a baking tray and grill whole, on a high heat until the skin is blackened and the aubergines wrinkled. It took me about 10 minutes, it'll take less for the smaller/thinner aubergines. You can also toast the aubergine directly over a  flame but it will get very smoky and sets the smoke alarms off indoors so best to save this method for outdoor cookery.

As soon as the aubergine(s) come out of the grill, cover the tray with a tight layer of cling film (which will vacuum itself to the hot aubergine) but once cooled a little will allow you easily peel off the skin.

Discard burnt skin and cut the smoky flesh into strips. When cool, mix in a bowl along with all the other ingredients, serving the boiled eggs on the side.