Cold udon with eggplant and pork

Jinbocho (map) is the place to go if you love books. It can be found in central Tokyo where the streets are full of old book stores. Lots of people stop by a shop, check books outside and read it for a minute. That's what you see in this town.

Each book store has its own specialty like culture, hobbies, math's, sciences, languages or laws etc. So the whole area is just like one big library. For example, there is a store mostly has Italian, Portuguese and Spanish books and another has just books of the Edo era (AC1600-1868 in Japan). There are even some places that specialize in a particular war.

It's a lot of fun just to walk along the streets, so I can always find interesting books.

For some reason, the street (Hakusan st.) crossed with the main book street (Yasukuni st.) contains many sports stores and it's popular to buy cheap ski-gear here as well.

Today I will introduce an udon recipe in a different style to tradition.

Ingredients for 2 serves;

udon

minced pork

egg plant
garlic

ginger
nutmeg

salt

sake (1tbsp)

vinegar (1tbsp)

soy sauce (1tbsp)

pepper

starch (1tsp)

1- Boil udon and then wash it with cold water. Drain the water.

2- Fry the minced pork with sesame oil, the finely cut ginger and garlic. Add the cut egg plant and fry till the pork is cooked.

3- Add a cup of water, salt, sake, pepper, nutmeg, vinegar and soy sauce. Boil until there is less water.

4- Melt the starch in the little water, put it into 3 and stir well.

5- Put 4 on the udon.

Sprinkle some red chili powder on if you like it spicy.

Itadakimasu.