This is the second installment of the dinner date guide, aka The Maxim-type Dude's Guide to Getting Laid By Convincing Girl To Come Over For Dinner Even Though Dude Can't Cook Worth Shit! For the basics and a run-down of contestant #1, the Meat and Potatoes girl, read the Dinner Date Guide! Part 1.
Without further adieu, contestant #2:
The Girl: She's a vegetarian. She tries not to wear leather, though she does like milk and honey in her morning cup of chai. She cried while explaining the plight of Proctor & Gamble's laboratory animals, but you didn't hear a word she said past the phrase "shaved bunnies."
The Menu: Edamame with sea salt. Spicy Eggplant with Tofu and Basil over Brown Rice. Ciao Bella coconut sorbet.
The Edamame: Look, every idiot, you Maxim-dude included, can make edamame. Serving edamame to your guest may even suggest that you are the kind, sensitive, worldly man she would want to lay down with. Buy frozen edamame pods. Boil them. Season with coarse sea salt, preferably some nice fleur de sel or some moist coarse Asian sea salt, which will elevate your plain boiled legumes into a thing of beauty.
Now, about the main course: stir-fries are simple fast-food. All you need is protein, veg, allium (garlic/onion/scallion family) and sauce. There are tons of cooking sauces out there which are delicious and easy to use. Your stir-fries need not be limited to soy sauce, sugar, and cornstarch. There are ready-to-use sauces like black bean and garlic, yellow bean sauce, oyster sauce, ponzu, curry pastes, fish sauce, etc. Get familiar with these sauces, as a composer gets to know the instruments of an orchestra. Some are loud, some are subtle, all are useful for making delicious food at a moment's notice.
The Eggplant: Cook your brown rice according to directions. Take phallic Chinese or Japanese Eggplant, cut in half lengthwise and cut into 3 inch chunks. Steam the eggplant until just tender. In a large wok or frying pan over high heat, quickly saute a little minced garlic and 1/2 a sliced red onion. Add 1/2 sliced red bell pepper and sliced long green chili, saute another minute. Add cubed block of soft tofu (not silken), eggplant, 1 1/2 tbsp. Lee Kum Kee vegetarian stir-fry sauce (which is made from mushroom extract) and cook til heated through. Add a large handful of torn Thai basil or green basil and remove from heat. Serve immediately.
*A note on chopsticks: Thai people only use chopsticks with noodles. When it comes to rice dishes, they eat with a spoon in the right hand and a fork in the left, the fork doing the duties usually relegated to the knife in Western-style eating. So if your chopsticks struggle in a losing battle with delicate clumps of rice, you don't have to be ashamed: ditch 'em and pick up the fork. An entire Asian nation stands behind you.
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