My children love having aubergine dishes. I also find it delicious as Indonesian dish, e.g. cooked as lodeh. However, the kids usually ask for aubergine in balado sauce (cooked in Indonesian tomato sauce with a tint of chili). I also find it delicious but too tedious to cook. It is because we need to fry the aubergine first.
Another favorite style of cooking aubergine for us, is aubergine in (spicy) garlic sauce. I usually buy the instant sauce (Singapore brand) to make it. This aubergine dish also needs us to fry the aubergine first before making the sauce.
Last week, I wanted to cook aubergine we had but I did not have other ingredients either for aubergine balado or lodeh. After browsing for the possible alternatives, I decided to try making the non-spicy variant of the aubergine in garlic sauce. I did not have the instant sauce, but I had the ingredients to make the sauce.
It turned out to be quite nice and the whole family loved it. Although it still involved frying, I found this dish quite refreshing. I did plan to slowly add some chili so that my children can learn to appreciate spicy food also.
Below is the recipe of this dish.
- Dust the aubergine strips in corn flour, put aside.
- Heat the oil. Not too much, just enough to fry the aubergine, but not deep frying it. Fry one side for around 3 minutes or until it is brown. Then, fry the other side also until it is brown. Drain the excess oil and put aside.
- Heat 1 tbsp of oil. Brown the minced garlic for 1 minute.
- Add the minced ginger until fragrant.
- Add the aubergine.
- Add the soy sauce, black vinegar. Mix until the soy sauce and vinegar well incorporated with the aubergine.
- Add a bit of pepper and sprinkle the sugar on the aubergine. Mix them well.
- Add the spring onion.
- Add a bit of chili powder or cut chili if you want something spicy.
- Taste it. If needed adjust the taste with salt/pepper/sugar.
- Serve the dish with warm steamed rice.
