Braised eggplant with tomatoes is one of my favourite dish that my mom used to make. This dish has a slight tangy taste that is very addicting with rice. My mom actually taught me this recipe when I moved out and it’s one of the dishes that I now cook quite often in my kitchen. This dish is also completely vegan as well!
Braised eggplant and tomatoes just has two ingredients, eggplant and tomatoes. The rest of the flavour comes from the sauce. The sauce is also super easy to make. It’s everything you can find in your cupboards or can easily buy at the grocery.
Now a warning, this dish contains a lot of garlic (I’m a huge fan). There is something magical about garlic and eggplant together. The garlic and the Chinese black vinegar helps to elevate this dish.
Prepping your ingredients
The only downside to cooking with eggplant is that it can absorb a lot of oil. Eggplants are very spongy (due to the moisture). Therefore, eggplant has to be prepped to draw out the moisture so they don’t soak up a lot of oil (you don’t have to use a lot of oil). The way my mom taught me is actually sear both sides of the cut eggplant in a dry hot pan until they turn brown. However if I’m making a whole batch of this dish it will take me close to 20 minutes to cut and dry fry. I wanted decrease amount of time I would have to stand in front of the stove. I decided to try baking it for 15 minutes. This worked very well and I can prepare other ingredients.
My husband also gave me an idea to decrease the prep time for eggplant. When he cooked the dish, he decided to add about 1 tbsp of salt. He waited about 10 minutes and squeeze the eggplant. Don’t worry about too much water being squeezed out.
Pro-tip
- It’s important to dry out the eggplant or else it will absorb a lot of oil and also harder to cook. If you don’t want to use the oven, add about 1 tbsp of salt and let it sit for 5-10 minutes, squeeze the eggplant.
- Always taste your dishes so you can see if you need to add more vinegar, soy sauce etc.
- This dish cooks really quick, about 10 minutes despite of being braised so don’t walk away. Always turn the heat low after pouring the sauce to prevent burning and running sauce dry.
Braised Eggplant with Tomatos
Ingredients
- 5 eggplant
- 5 tomatoes
- 6-7 garlic cloves
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp vinegar
- salt to taste
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
If using salt method from drying eggplant
- 1 tbsp salt
Instructions
- Wash eggplants and tomatoes. Preheat the oven to 350℉
- Peel the eggplant and cut them into slices. Set aside
- Lay them on a baking sheet with parchment paper, bake them for 15 minutes. Flip the eggplant slices halfway. Or add about 1 tbsp of salt and wait 10 minutes
- Cut tomatoes into chunks. Mince the garlic.
- Add the garlic, black vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, water and cornstarch together.
- After 15 minutes take the eggplant out of the oven. If using the salt method, just squeeze the eggplant.
- Put some oil into a wok. Stir fry the eggplant for 2 minutes on medium high, add in the tomatoes and stir fry for another 2 minutes or until it softens.
- Add in the sauce and let it simmer on medium low heat. It will take about 6-7 minutes
- Add salt to taste and serve with rice.
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