Easy braised eggplants – Microwave edition!

I grew up eating braised eggplants and when I was young my mom always made eggplants. When I started cooking, she taught me how to make eggplants but it’s so tedious! First you have to remove the water in the eggplant by dry frying or baking in the oven then you stir fry it. If you don’t remove the water from the eggplant, it will soak up a lot of oil and the dish is…ruined.

So I’ve recently discovered that you can make braised eggplants in the microwave! It takes only about 8 minutes with 3-5 minutes of prep in between! That means I can make something a braised eggplant dish under 10 minutes without me watching over my eggplant so it doesn’t burn. Best of all, it tastes like you actually cooked it on the stove top!

Ingredients

The main star of the show are eggplants of course! However we do need to prepare some aromatics and sauce for our eggplant. The eggplant I’m using is Chinese long eggplant. I’m using 2, which gives about 5-6 cups of cut eggplant. They will shrink in size as they cook. If you don’t have access to Chinese eggplant, use Italian one, (3/4 is enough).

Aromatic

• Thai chili (1-2 is enough), chopped
• 2 tbsp garlic (eggplant and garlic are match made in heaven, add as much as you like in your dish), minced
• 2 tbsp scallions, chopped

Sauce

• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (this can be found in Chinese grocery stores)
• 1 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce (for colouring)
• 2 tsp oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar (add less if you don’t like sugar)
• 1 tsp cornstarch (to thicken the sauce when it’s cooking in the microwave)

The key is to cut the egg plants into smaller sizes so it cooks faster in the microwave.

How to make it

This is where everything gets really easy.

1. First wash and cut the ends of the egg plants. Then cut the egg plant into bite size pieces.
2. Then put into microwave safe bowl and pop into the microwave UNCOVERED for 3 minutes on high
3. Meanwhile prep your aromatics and also combine your sauce.
4. Once the eggplant is done in the microwave, take it out carefully. Add in your aromatics and sauce. Mix together
5. Pop it back to the microwave and cover with a lid or plastic wrap (with holes poked on top), cook for 4-5 minutes depending on your microwave. My microwave took about 4.5 minutes
6. Once it done, serve with rice! That’s it! It’s that simple. Braised eggplants made in the microwave

Pro-tip

• Cut the eggplant into smaller sizes so it cooks faster.
• You have to cook the eggplant before adding the aromatics and sauce because you need to evaporate some of the water content in the eggplant.
• Garlic and eggplant goes really well together so add as much as you like or can tolerate but trust me it will really elevate the eggplant.
• To prevent overcooking the eggplant, once you add the sauce into the eggplant, do about 2-3 minutes first and see if it is cooked, then add 1-2 minutes. In my microwave, I found 4.5 minutes is the right time for me.

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