Also at the markets last Saturday were these brilliant Thai pea eggplants (Solanum torvum) that are perfect in thai curries like this one I featured a few days ago but didn’t have the pea eggplants to add to it. These tiny little eggplants are the size of peas or slightly larger and look like unripe green tomatoes but with a thicker skin. They have a really tart/sour flavor that mellows a bit when cooked. A small bunch perfect for a small curry was only PHP30 at the market. Keep your eyes out for them the next time you are shopping…a nice authentic ingredient to add to your possibly packaged curry mix…
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Looks like this is what Santos posted few days ago and she asked anyone who knows about this.
never seen this thing before… I saw white eggplants at the market the other day Swiss Cheese laughed so hard when he heard me say I SAW ALBINO EGGPLANTS today!
i was at salcedo two weekends ago, and i saw these. when i got home, i checked over here, because i was certain you had already done a post on them; i knew you’d get to them eventually :) my lovely readers have already clued me in as to how to use the eggplants, and helped with a previously unidentified herb, but perhaps you’ve had experience with the herb in question? any help would be appreciated.
santos, sha sent me your way…I have been so bad about doing the rounds and regret not seeing your post earlier or I would have responded sooner! will go check out the herb you are wondering about…
The first time I tasted these in some Thai curry dish I actually thougth they were unripe aratiles! Thank you Marketman for enlightening me. :) Btw, love your blog.
That’s right, these tiny eggplants are an essential ingredient in authentic Thai curries. When I was told they were indeed eggplants by former Thai colleagues, I was doubtful and they were surprised I didn’t know. Glad these are already available in Manila. Thank you for your very informative posts, especially on produce. Keep them coming, please.
Talking about coincidence,just had these thai eggplants in Bangkok when i had a cooking class there. We did a chichen green curry and they gave us a sample of these eggplants. If for any chance anyone of you goes to Bangkok, try to enroll in Bai Pai’s Cooking School for their cooking class.You can visit their website http://www.baipai.com.Highly recommendable, I paid B1,400 for a half day class. They even pick you up in your hotel.They do demos, food tasting and each one of you gets to cook all the dishes for the class. I’m not paid for this just wanted to share you the wonderful experience i had there.
Hope these eggplants will be on a regular basis in Salcedo market.Thanks for the info.