Recipe for Barbecue Asian Eggplant
I was once a guest at a Chinese family's barbecue picnic, where the variety of food and the cooking seemed to be never-ending. We had satay (the ground meatball kind), chinese sausages, barbeque pork, vegetable skewers, beef skewers, and this fabulous eggplant, which we ate straight out of the tinfoil with chopsticks.
You definitely want to use the Asian or Japanese eggplant, which is long, slender and bright purple, as opposed to the North American or Italian varieties that are generally plumper and more pear-shaped.
Ingredients
Tip:
Sesame oil is very potent. Always use sparingly to start, especially if you are not used to using it in your cooking.
- 1 small Japanese eggplant per person
- Sesame Oil, to drizzle
- Light Soya Sauce, to drizzle
- Roasted sesame seeds, to sprinkle
Cooking Method
- Tightly wrap each eggplant separately in a piece of tinfoil.
- Barbecue (or bake in the oven) for 20 minutes to half an hour, until very soft to the touch.
- (You can start these on the top rack of your barbecue as soon as you turn it on and pretty much let them go while you prepare and cook everything else.)
- Leave the eggplant wrapped in the foil until you're ready to serve, then open each, slice the eggplant open lengthwise and run a fork through the flesh a little to break it up.
- Drizzle sesame oil and soya sauce and mash it all through with the fork.
- Sprinkle with roasted sesame seeds and serve immediately.
- Pass around extra soya sauce, sesame oil and seeds for those who want it.
This easy Barbecue Asian Eggplant makes a great side dish for any hearty barbecued meat, especially steak or ostrich kebabs, and also goes nicely with my Indonesian Satay.
