Eggplant with Garlic and Basil Sauce

Overview

🍽️ Serving Size: 6

👩‍🍳 Cooks in the Kitchen: Maia

🔪 Prep Time: 2 hr, 🍳 Cook Time: 1 hr

⏱️ Total Time: 3 hr

Ingredients

Sauce

• 1 cup water
• ⅓ cup fish sauce
• ¼ cup packed brown sugar
• 4 tsp grated lime zest plus 1 Tbsp juice (2 limes)
• 4 tsp cornstarch
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes

Vegetables

• 7 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 12 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 2 lb eggplant, cut into ¾-in pieces
• 2 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and cut into ¼-in pieces
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves, torn into rough ½-in pieces
• 4 scallions, sliced thin

Cooking Details

There are quite a few ingredients to chop, mince, grate, and slice before you even get started cooking.

Once I started cooking, it went smoothly except for one part. The recipe instructs you to scrape the bottom of the Dutch oven to loosen the browned bits, but I found that difficult. The browned bits looked like they might start burning, so I added some water to help loosen things up.

Food Review

With the mound of ginger and garlic this recipe called for, I knew this dish would be flavorful. It delivered, and paired well with the tofu and brown lentils I added. I recently made two other vegetable side dishes from this cookbook (Walk-Away Ratatouille and Whole Pot-Roasted Cauliflower with Tomatoes and Olives), and I admittedly liked both the other dishes more than this one.