Asian Fusion Eggplant

I was supposed to grill the eggplant tonight, but the grill ran out of propane and I was in no position to replace it! However, I had already sliced the eggplant and it just wouldn’t keep in that condition, so I came up with this! We should all be grateful to the grill…. However, this recipe, like many others, has some room to play. Eggplant is some sort of sponge that just tastes like whatever you season it with.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Optional step: Slice the eggplant, lay it out on a baking tray and salt it. Leave it as is, to draw out some water for 10 minutes, then turn and repeat. This eliminates some of the spongy texture. Rinse VERY well and pat dry with paper towels.)

Cube the eggplant slices into roughly 1 inch cubes.

Pour the olive oil into a glass pan. Add everything else (except eggplant) and stir together. This combination yields fairly spicy flavor, but is good with cous cous or rice. You can always wimp out by reducing the hot sauce. Taste and check the salt content, add more soy sauce if you’d like but be careful if you were lazy earlier while rinsing the salt off the eggplant slices!)

Add the eggplant cubes and toss to coat, making sure that each cube is really coated. You don’t want any naked spots!

Put pan into oven. Every 15 minutes or so, stir the cubes. 40 minutes for me was quite soft but with a little spongy texture lingering. Just use your own judgement here – I think it would be tough to overbake this.

I served this with cous cous and chicken, but I think it would make a nice main course too.