Eggplants are a great ingredient for eating and cooking! I’ve been in love with eggplant for years and I really don’t understand why people don’t like this beautiful vegetable! It’s already Wednesday at Casa de la Vida and that’s why I’m sharing a delicious quick rice bowl recipe with marinated eggplant with you today.
Yesterday I posted on my Instagram about this beautiful vegetable and that got me thinking: How could I make a delicious and quick rice bowl for this Wednesday? Lately, of course, I’ve been busy with my tofu discoveries, but today I wanted to make something without tofu!
I still manage to cook rice quite well. Every time it is a surprise how the rice will come out, but with the type of dish I want to present to you today, it is not really bad if the rice gets a bit sticky. That’s nice, because then the bowl gets a little more constancy!
What are eggplants actually good for in your daily diet? They are good for your digestion and they are full of minerals and vitamins. Eggplants are also rich in fiber and antioxidants. And because of that, eggplants are very healthy for your heart, which is of course good and important!
Eggplants have been shown to not only be good for your gut or your heart, but because they are rich in antioxidants, they may also protect your body against cancer. They also help with the balance of your blood sugar and weight loss, because they are low in calories and high in fiber. So basically you have a lot of good nutrients in a vegetable that is low in calories. What more could you want?
Today I’d love to present you a quick bite that you can make in less than thirty minutes. You can cook the grain of your choice with it, and I chose rice. And luckily I recently bought a lot of eggplants when I came across them, because now you can’t really find many in Spain!
Teriyaki is a sauce made with soy sauce, mirin or sugar, and rice vinegar. It can be bought ready-made, but it is better to make it yourself, of course, especially if you have all the ingredients at home. The sauce is used for marinating and grilling meat and fish, but also many vegetables for vegans and vegetarians. The intention is to grill the marinade together with the desired ingredients, so that it stays on it! That’s what teriyaki is all about! And today we’re going to make a sticky teriyaki marinated eggplant with a bowl of rice. Did you get so much sense in it?
Ingredients
For 2 medium sized bowls.
- 1 medium eggplant
- 100 gr of cooked rice per person
Marinade
- 30 ml mirin, or if you don’t have it, a tablespoon of sugar with a little water
- 40 ml soy sauce
- 2 cm ginger, grated
- 1 garlic, grated
- 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
Toppings
- sesame seeds
- chili flakes
- spring onion
Preparation
You can easily double this recipe, but when grilling you have to do it in two batches, otherwise the eggplant will of course not be as tasty. You can easily keep the first batch warm in a preheated oven or on an plate with aluminum foil. In the meantime, prepare your grain of your choice. I cooked 1 cup of rice in 3 glasses of water and it came out delicious!
Wash your eggplant under water and pat it dry. Cut the ends off and cut the eggplant lengthwise into two parts, then each part into 4 pieces. Cut these elongated pieces in thirds again so that you get good chunks to cook with.
Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl and stir well until the sugar is completely dissolved. Then add the eggplant pieces and stir it so that the chunks are completely covered with marinade. Let it marinate for 20 minutes. Set the bowl aside for this, but don’t forget to stir every few minutes.
Heat a grill pan over medium heat. When the eggplant pieces have turned nice and brown in the marinade, it is time to grill them. Grill the chunks for a few minutes, then shake the pan back and forth to loosen them up. Then add the marinade and let it grill again.
Make sure your heat is not too high, because then the sauce will immediately harden and your eggplant pieces will stick to the pan! Grilling takes about 5 to 10 minutes depending on how you like to eat eggplant. I like it still a little hard. Serve the eggplant straight from the pan over your rice. Sprinkle some topping on top and voilà, a delicious and healthy snack!
The result
Eggplant is so easy to add to your daily fare, and secretly it looks just like meat when it is well marinated and not overcooked! It remains a genius vegetable and I did not know that you could make a tasty snack that contained so much flavor so quickly. This dish is certainly worth repeating. It’s delicious cold too, so you can take it with you for lunch, even if you don’t have a microwave handy.
Since eggplants are now hard to get and I take good care of them, I have not been able to give Luis and my father too much. But they could also eat other things. I personally enjoyed it very much. I’ll make it again soon, and more than this time!
Marinating vegetables always gives me so many new ideas that I’m sure eggplant won’t be my last victim. The best part is that I am starting to like rice as it is, without all the sauces. No, just with a little sesame and chili flakes! This was another successful discovery and dish, on to the next!
Now I am of course curious again how you like to prepare your eggplant! Tell me more about it and who knows, you might have the golden tip or discovery of the century!
