Oriental Eggplant

Eggplant is a versatile vegetable and used in many foods around the world.  Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Indian, Thai, and many others have eggplant as one of their main vegetable dishes in their cuisines.  You can either use it for curry, casserole, roasted, fried, sauteed, steamed, and on.  There are also different types of eggplants - big and round Italian eggplant, the long and slender Chinese eggplant, the short and thin Japanese eggplant.  The textures are slightly varied between them but very insubstantial.

The following recipe is shared to me by my 3D decoupage instructor, Kyoko.  She is an excellent cook and I love her foods, which is mostly Japanese.  This is one of her wonderful Japanese recipes that I am sharing here in the blog.  Unlike the Chinese version that has thicker sauce to it, this recipe is not too far off in terms of taste, flavor and texture to its Chinese counterpart - sweet, tangy, ginger and garlicky palate to it.  This eggplant dish is always popular whenever I made it for potluck or get together.  You can always opt to steam them instead of frying the eggplants if you choose the healthier version and don't mind a nod down in regards to taste (that's the trade off).  I have tried both versions.

Ingredients:

• roughly 8-10 eggplants, either Chinese or Japanese, I usually use Chinese eggplants, cut about 1/2" in width diagonally
• 1 tablespoon chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon chopped ginger
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons mirin
• 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon chili soy bean paste
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar, I use sushi rice vinegar

Direction:

1. Deep fried eggplants and dry the oil with paper towel, you can also steam them instead of deep fried the eggplants but the taste won't be as good
2. Boil the soy sauce, mirin, sugar, chili soy bean paste, and rice vinegar on low heat until it boils
3. Add ginger, onion, and garlic and continue cooking it on low heat for another few minutes (about 5 minutes)
4. Put eggplants on serving plate and pour the sauce over it, enjoy

 Serve 6-8 people
Recipe courtesy of Kyoko Nguyen