It’s been too long since I posted a recipe last time. As the pandemic continued, I kind of lost creativity to continue posting recipes. It’s summer now, and I see abundance of fresh local vegetables at local farmers markets. That got me inspire to get back back in the game and start posting recipes regularly. 🙂
I had leftover tempeh which I needed to use quickly. When I saw Japanese eggplants at a farmers market this morning, I thought of veganizing one of the popular eggplant dishes in Japan. It’s sautéed eggplant with ground meat (usually pork) with sweet miso sauce. I substituted ground meat with crumbled tempeh to make this dish. This dish requires just a few ingredients and quick to make. I used my homemade 3- year miso so the color of my miso in the above picture is dark but any miso will work.
I used Japanese eggplants which has softer skin but any eggplants will do. This dish usually uses a lot of oil but I made it low oil.
Let’s begin cooking! The shorter version of the recipe and the list of ingredients are available below.
- Cut of the top of eggplants and cut them into quarter lengthwise
2. Soak eggplants in water with a pinch of salt for 5 minutes. This remove the bitterness of eggplants.
3. Crumble tempeh by hand and set aside
4. Mix all sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside
5. Put eggplants in a cold nonstick pan with their skin down and coat them with oil. Starting from the cold pan and steaming eggplants is the key to make this dish low oil.
6. Put a lid on and turn on the heat (medium heat)
7. Once it starts steaming, cook until eggplants become soft (about 3 minutes)
If you use a clear lid, you can see steam starts to build up.
You want to keep the heat not too high or too low. You can see water starts dripping from the lid and hear a sizzling sound as eggplants cook.
7. Remove the lid and turn eggplants until the cut side becomes slightly colored. Remove eggplants from the pan and set aside.
8. Cook tempeh with a pinch of salt until it slightly browns
9. Turn off the heat and sprinkle potato starch and stir to coat well. Potato starch helps thickening the sauce. Coating tempeh with potato starch here helps disperse potato starch and prevents it from lumping.
10. Add grated ginger and eggplants and turn on the heat (medium heat)
11. When the pan become warm, pour the sauce and cook until it thickens. When you serve, you can sprinkle sesame seeds (optional).
This dish has a perfect balance of saltiness and sweetness which goes well with eggplants. Since I replaced ground meat with tempeh and only used a small amount oil, it turned out not heavy.
If you can find eggplants, please try! This dish goes well with rice. I like to eat it with lettuce as well.
- 2 small to medium eggplants
- 100g (3.6 oz) tempeh
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp vegetable oil
- 2 pinches of salt
- 1 tsp potato starch
- 1 -2 tsp grated ginger
- *sauce
- 1 TBS miso
- 1 TBS mirin
- 1 TBS agave nector
- 1 TBS water
- ½ tsp soy sauce
- *optional
- sesame seed
- Cut of the top of eggplants and cut them into quarter lengthwise
- Soak eggplants in water with a pinch of salt for 5 minutes
- Crumble tempeh by hand and set aside
- Mix all sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside
- Put eggplants in a cold nonstick pan with their skin down and coat them with oil
- Put a lid on and turn on the heat (medium heat)
- Once it starts steaming, cook until eggplants become soft (about 3 minutes)
- Cook tempeh with a pinch of salt until it slightly browns
- Turn off the heat and sprinkle potato starch and stir to coat well
- Add grated ginger and eggplants and turn on the heat (medium heat)
- When the pan become warm, pour the sauce and cook until it thicken. When you serve, you can sprinkle sesame seeds (optional).
Leave a Reply