Marinated eggplant is one of my favorite vegetable side dishes. Eggplants are so soft and juicy, it works really well with Japanese cold noodles such as soba or ‘somen’ (vermicelli), or just simple rice. It is a kind of preserved food, and you can keep it in fridge for 3-5 days.
I use this recipe in Japanese as a base, and double the sauce and add peppers. This is what I do. Japanese website below is showing the detail of how to in pictures, which may be helpful.
Ingredients
1-2 eggplants *if it is a small Japanese eggplants, use 4-5.
1-2 peppers. Any colour is fine.
4 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 piece of ginger (about 10g)
For sauce
500ml of Japanese soup “Dashi-jiru) (2 tablespoons of hondashi powder+ 500ml of water should work)
5 tablespoons of say sauce *if you like strong flavor, 6 tablespoons.
4 tablespoons of Mirin
2 teaspoons of sugar
For garnish
chopped spring onion
grated Daikon radish
grated ginger
Instruction
1. Cut eggplants in wedges removing stems. Since NZ eggplants are large, I normally cut 1 eggplants in 12 pieces.
2. Make shallow slits on the skin of each pieces, roughly about 2-3mm apart.
3. Cut peppers into strips, roughly about 1.5-2 cm each.
4. In a large bowl, soak eggplants into water for 10 mins. This step is to remove bitterness and avoid changing the colour in the white part. After 10 mins, wipe water with a kitchen paper.
5. Crush ginger.
6. Prepare sauce. In a jar or a small bowl, mix all the ingredients for sauce.
7. Pour 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan, and add crushed ginger, keep low-medium heat. Once the ginger starts making noise, turn off the stove.
8. Add eggplant pieces to a pan, with the skin down, medium heat.
9. When the skin has vivid good colour, then cook the other faces.
10. When all the eggplants are cooked, keep them aside on a plate, then cook peppers.
11. Move eggplants back to the pan, then add the sauce from step 6. Once it starts boiling, turn down the heat, then cook for 3-4 mins.
12. Rest and cool down. This tastes better when it is colder while the warm is also good.
13. Serve with garnish on top.
https://www.sirogohan.com/recipe/nibitasinasu/