Summer! It means ripe tomatoes - including the first Green Zebras from the vines today - and chillis and eggplant, all just right for Lao-style jeow. The word means something akin to sauce or dip, particularly in the salsa vein. Something very thin, like fish sauce1, has nam in there someplace, which is the word for water or water-like stuff.
Anyhow. Jeow is a dip that you eat with balls of Lao/Thai sticky rice2, and it's made from whatever's at hand. Start with some good fresh vegetables:
Here: tomatoes, eggplant, chillis, and garlic, all on skewers. Scallions and holy basil for later. Not pictured: fish sauce. If I'd had shallots nearby, they'd be ready to go, too.
The key, as far as I'm concerned, is fire. Not just the gas flame at the stove, but charcoal. I don't even bother with the grill, but cook it all right over the chimney starter, which is insanely hot. The trick is to cook the vegetables until soft enough to pound in a mortar, and the high heat works to char the hell out of the skins. For one, it makes them easy to peel. Even better is the glorious smokiness that results.
Tomatoes don't take but a few moments, and the chillis just a hint longer. Garlic and eggplant, though, take enough time to get awesomely smoky. I keep going until the skins are turning to ash at the tips, until they feel soft to the touch. If I could manage it with the tomatoes, I would, but there's a limit to how long I can watch before fearing they'll plummet to the coals, irretrievable.
Then it's peel skins, mash coarsely in a mortar, season with fish sauce, basil, cilantro, etc. Eat with sticky rice. I could pretty much call this a meal:
Eggplant on the left, with chillis, garlic, scallions, holy basil, fish sauce. Tomato on the right, with garlic, scallions, holy basil, fish sauce. These are the new summer standards.
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1Which is a condiment, really, and not a sauce. But "fish condiment" sounds even less appetizing, or else just confusing.
2Not to be confused with sushi rice, which is somewhat sticky, or Japanese sweet rice - since it's also sometimes called sweet rice - which is stickier than sushi rice. Lao sticky rice is super-sticky, requires hours of advance soaking, and must be steamed. But it's unique and delicious, and maybe my favorite rice. Which is really saying something.
