Sweet and Sour Eggplant Recipe

Today's recipe is a classic sweet and sour vegetarian eggplant (aubergine) stir-fry made from parboiled vegetables that are finished by stir-frying with sugar, red wine vinegar and chilli flakes.

This is a healthy and very easy to prepare dish, just make sure you use home-made vegetable stock to cut down on the salt!!

The use of garden mint lends this dish a very North African twist.

Sweet and Sour Eggplant

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

2 large aubergines (eggplants)
6 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 onion, cut into eight wedges
4 large tomatoes, blanched, peeled, de-seeded and chopped
3 tbsp mint, chopped
150ml (2/3 cup) vegetable stock
4 tsp brown sugar
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp hot chilli flakes
salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
fresh sprigs of mint, to garnish

Method:

Using a sharp knife, cut the aubergines (eggplants) into cubes. Place these in a colander, sprinkle with salt and set aside to stand for 30 minutes. After this time, rinse the aubergine pieces thoroughly under cold, running, water then set aside to drain well. Once drained, pat dry with kitchen paper.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and use to fry the aubergine pieces, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Now stir in the garlic and onion and cook for 3 minutes more.

Stir in the tomatoes, mint and stock. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook gently for about 18 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Stir in the brown sugar, red wine vinegar and chilli flakes. Season to taste with salt and black pepper then cook for 2 minutes more to allow the flavours to meld.

Turn into a dish, garnish with fresh mint sprigs and serve.

For hundreds more classic and modern vegetarian recipes, why not visit the Celtnet Vegetarian recipes and vegetarian cookery pages?