Miso eggplant and cauliflower with green tea noodles

(serves 4)

This vegetarian dish uses 3 of my favourite flavour-absorbing veggies, cooked to their best texture and coated in a thick sweet miso sauce. It was initially inspired by the traditional nasu dengaku (miso eggplant) dish, and expanded to include a few more healthy vegetables to bulk it up. Miso roasted cauliflower was a pleasant surprise as the soft but crisp florets are transformed into explosively tasty bites.

There is a cute story of broken trust behind the green tea noodles. One day i thought i'd entrust Paul with the important job of Asian supermarket shopping, with specific instructions to get green bean vermicelli noodles. His confident 'Yep, sure' without even checking what the previous packet looked like left me with some doubts, but as he usually does a great and far more efficient job of shopping (other than returning with a few extra packets of grain waves or 100s and 1000s cookies), i thought i'd let him go. Lo and behold, he returned with a dramatic "I got everything!" and proudly produced FOUR packets of green tea noodles (and four packets grain waves!!)... speechless :0 

 Prep time: 30 min

Cooking time: 1hr

Ingredients
1 medium eggplant
1 broccoli
1 cauliflower
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 T sesame seeds
1/2 T sesame oil
150g green tea noodles (dried)
1 T soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 sprig of green shallot, thinly sliced
extra sesame seeds for garnish

Sauce
1.5 T sesame seeds
3.5 T miso
7 T mirin
5 T rice vinegar
1 tsp caster sugar
2 T sesame oil

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C.
2. Cut the eggplant into 2cm cubes and the cauliflower into bite-size florets. Dress with olive oil, salt and 1T sesame seeds.
3. Roast for 30-40 minutes, tossing with sesame oil after 15 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, cut the broccoli into bite-size florets and steam over boiling water for 15-20 minutes until just tender. Set aside to cool.
NB. You can also use a microwave safe dish and steam covered in the microwave with a bit of water for 3-5 minutes. 

Using our steamer for the first time!!

5. To prepare the sauce, add the sesame seeds, miso, mirin, rice vinegar, caster sugar and sesame oil into a small saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the miso and sugar are well melted. Briefly bring to the boil, then simmer to reduce for 8-10 minutes. Season to taste.
6. Toss the roasted eggplant, cauliflower and steamed broccoli with the miso sauce.

7. Boil the green tea noodles for 3-5 minutes (or according to the packet) until al dente. Drain, rinse with cold water and drain again. Toss the noodles with the soy sauce, sesame oil and rice vinegar.  

8. To serve, place the green tea noodles in the centre of a bowl or plate and gently scatter the veggies around. Top with thinly sliced green shallots and a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds.