Thai Pea Eggplants, Product of USA, 8 oz

Thai Pea Eggplants (Solanum torvum, mak-heua puang มะเขือพวง in Thai) are normally added to Thai curries such as green, panang, kaeng tai pla and red curry. They are also a favorite addition to Thai chili pastes including nam prik kapee (chili paste with shrimp paste). This small eggplant adds a pleasingly slightly bitter taste, color and texture to the dish, which cannot be easily replicated by any other ingredient.

Though pea eggplants are approximately the size of green English sweet peas, their taste is entirely different. Therefore sweet peas do not make for a good substitute for this type of eggplant. Growing in clusters of 10 to 15 baby eggplants, similar to a cherry tomato cluster, this bushy plant is part of almost every Thai household garden and fruits almost continuously. Pea eggplants are thin-skinned and contain numerous flat, round, brown seeds and can taste slightly more bitter than Thai apple eggplant. If you really want to achieve an authentic Thai taste especially when making curries, don't try cooking without it!

As with all traditional Thai ingredients there are numerous health benefits associated with the pea eggplant. As per Wiki, "extracts of the plant are reported to be useful in the treatment of hyperactivity, colds and cough, pimples, skin diseases...." In fact in Thai pharmacies, cold medicine is available with its chief ingredients being the extract of the pea eggplant.