Eggplant Salad (Yam Makeua Yao)

Thai Grilled Eggplant Salad (Yam Makeua Yao)

In November 2003, we moved to Chiang Mai and lived there for a couple of years. It was an interesting experience especially since we don’t speak Thai. We lived south of the airport so that is the neighborhood that we explored most. We loved the local Maehia market for groceries, fruit and prepared items like Chiang Mai sausage (sai ua), green papaya salad (somtam Thai) and waterfall pork (muu namdtok). We also found a few eating places that we liked to frequent. Our favorite was “By the Banana Tree Restaurant”. It is long gone, but we still think about two wonderful dishes that we ate there that we are unable to get anywhere else. One dish is Grilled Eggplant Salad (Yam Makeua Yao) and the other was a fried fish dish which was served with a green mango salad and honey.

The fish dish was something we thought would be impossible to re-create since green mango would be difficult for us to find, but we thought the Eggplant Salad might be something we could re-create. So we searched for recipes and found one by the author of the book “It Rains Fishes” which we have. We quite like the book. So we used Kasma Loha-Unchit’s recipe as a guide and added elements that we thought were included in the By the Banana Tree Restaurant's dish. If we can get good chilis and grill our eggplants correctly, this comes close to what we remember!

Kasma's Ingredient List (see her recipe for details)

• Mesquite charcoal and a small handful of mesquite wood chips
• 4 long Asian eggplants
• 4 jalapeño or fresno peppers
• 10-15 Thai chillies (bird peppers), finely chopped
• Juice of about 2 limes, to taste
• 2-3 Tbs. fish sauce (nahm bplah), to taste (see Cooking to Taste)
• 2-3 tsp. sugar, to taste
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 1/4 lb. small fresh shrimp, shelled and butterflied
• 1 hard-boiled egg, cut into small wedges (6-8 pieces)
• A small handful of short cilantro sprigs

Our modifications:

• Add a little bit of boiled ground pork (about 2-3 oz).
• Add finely minced dried shrimp to sprinkle on top.
• Note: We use whatever chilis we have on hand.

Note: About the sauce ... we usually start with the following measurements then adjust if needed:

• 3 Tbs. lime juice
• 2 ½ Tbs. fish sauce
• 2 tsp. sugar

Thai Eggplant Salad - egg not yet cut into wedges:

Enjoy this with jasmine rice and usually another dish or two.

EAT Pub: 2019-May-20 16:00 Eggplant Salad
EAT Pub: 2019-May-20 16:00 Pictures from May 2019