Roasted eggplants with miso and garlic seasoning.
"I don't know how vegan (within the vegan spectrum) was the meal I made but I loved it. Everyone loved it. Vegan food is not bad and if you know how to cook it is even better."
Hey everyone, I hope you are doing great. Welcome to another post in It's Food O’clock, where I share about my affairs with food and cooking. Today's post is about cooking eggplant deliciously. If you like what you read, help me out by hitting like, sharing, and leaving a comment. Do you even like eggplant? And if so, what's your best eggplant meal? Oh, and subscribe to get notifications when I post something new.
We have been talking at home about eating more vegetables, and eggplant has come up a few times. We have cooked eggplant before, and when younger I tried it a few times, but it was something that was never on the main menu.
That was until my stepson, and I visited Mr. Wang Sports BBQ, a restaurant in Orlando’s Chinatown. We tried their garlic eggplant, and we were transformed. Soon I took my wife there on a date and she also became a believer, and even my daughter is fascinated with it.
It is slowly becoming a regular in our weekly meals.
But this meal / recipe that I am sharing today had a double purpose. Yes, one was the exploration of eggplant, but another one was to prove something to my stepson.
The night before (before I started writing this), we were having dinner, and I mentioned that I wanted to make a meal the next day that would be meatless. My stepson frowned and said, “I'll eat it, but it cannot be fully vegan”. In my head I said, “challenge accepted”.
I don't know how vegan (within the vegan spectrum) was the meal I made but I loved it. Everyone loved it. Vegan food is not bad and if you know how to cook it is even better.
The recipe
Roasted eggplants with miso and garlic seasoning, over mixed vegetables stirred brown rice (Bean sprouts, brussels sprouts, and Yu Choi). Serves four.
Ingredients
Two long eggplants, or one thick one. You need four portions. 🍆
1.5 cups of brown rice 🍚
3.5 cups of water 💦
A bunch of Yu-choy (about 8 stalks) 🌿
Fistful (and a bit more) of bean sprouts 🌱
About 6 heads of brussels sprouts (the small ones)
Olive oil 🫒
1 tbsp of Sesame oil
Salt 🧂
5 cloves of garlic (chopped small) 🧄
A tablespoon of miso paste
Half a cup of soy sauce
Hoisin sauce to drizzle over (Optional).
Procedure
Wash the rice well, pour about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pot and heat it up. Stir in the rice and cover with three cups of water and two teaspoons of salt. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to low. Cover and let cook for about 40 minutes or until done. In the meantime, prepare the eggplants.
Cut each eggplant in two and then cut each piece lengthwise. Then, carefully and with a sharp knife, square the eggplant from the inside (like tracing grill marks). Drizzle olive oil over each piece, sprinkle some salt, and set aside.
Cut the ends of the brussels sprouts and slice them. Cut off the yu-choy ends and slice them lengthwise in two. Chop the yu-choi leaves into one-inch pieces.
In a bowl, mix the miso, the sesame oil, and half a teaspoon of soy sauce. Whisk and mix well.
Heat up a pan with some olive oil until it is at medium heat. Place the eggplant, white part face down, drizzle olive oil over and a sprinkle of salt, and cook until it starts browning (on the darker side). Flip each piece and spread the miso-garlic-oil-soy paste over each as evenly as possible and let brown a bit on the skin side. Drop in about one quarter cup of water and cover for about three minutes. Keep your eyes open and don't let it burn (regulate heat accordingly.
Uncover the eggplant, flip each piece, and cover again for a minute. Be delicate when turning them as they get soft and can break. You want to keep the whole thing together. Repeat this (three to five times), until fully cooked and with a nice color. Cover and take it off the fire (but keep it in the pan).
Once the rice is ready, uncover it and set it aside as well.
Put the eggplant back on low fire to rekindle the temperature and flavors.
In a deep skillet with a drizzle of oil throw in the brussels sprouts and cook for a minute. Mix in the Yu-choy and cook for another minute. Put in half of the bean sprouts and quickly mix in the rice and stir until everything is well combined.
Throw in the soy sauce and stir quickly until evenly combined. Optional: at this moment I threw in a few more bean sprouts to keep the crunchy texture.
Serve the rice in a bowl and carefully top it with two pieces of eggplant.
Optional. Drizzle just a bit of hoisin sauce and enjoy.
This is the first time I have made this dish. Next time I plan to add mushrooms to the rice for meaty texture, but the flavors were spot on. A vegan meal to remember. My stepson loved it.
If you want to break the boundaries of veganism you can put a fried egg on top, mix scrambled eggs with the rice, and use butter for the eggplants instead of oil, and maybe even some bacon. But this meal needs no meat.