I harvested a decent number of eggplant Tuesday night and came home last night looking for something quick to make with them. Lately I’ve come across a lot of recipes using miso butter and thought maybe it was time to give it a try! In truth, miso butter really seemed wrong to me. Who puts dairy in Asian food? But people are smearing it all over their meat before grilling, so I figured it must be worth giving a shot! Plus, often I feel like I really need rice when I cook eggplant. And I don’t always want the rice, you know? So I thought maybe the butter would add a little more substance and I could cut out the rice.
After having made this, it wasn’t really my favorite way to cook eggplant. I forget that miso sometimes has a little TOO much umami for me to handle. Plus, the butter gave the eggplant a richness that I wasn’t looking for. I will say, I think meat eaters would probably like this dish quite a bit. It reminds me of the “best” eggplant parmesan in Richmond. It’s at this little Italian place in Oregon Hill called Mama Zu. For the past twenty years people have been raving to me about their eggplant. They get voted to have the best eggplant in Richmond. And vegetarians hate it. But hey, the meat eaters love it! So I’m going to try feeding this to my Dad. I’m pretty sure he’ll think this is the best roasted eggplant he’s ever had. If you aren’t a meat eater and want to try this recipe, I’d replace the butter with some vegetable oil and I’d halve the amount of miso. I think then it will be more in line with a vegetarian palate.
Miso-butter roasted eggplant
- Japanese eggplant, sliced lengthwise
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons miso paste
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
- 4 tablespoons mirin
- 1/2 cup white wine
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Prepare a cooking tray by lining it with parchment and spraying it with a light coating of oil or cooking spray. Next, score the cut sides of your eggplant. You’re doing this so that the sauce can get further into the flesh.
Place all your eggplant halves face-down on the parchment and cook until tender, about 15 minutes.
While the eggplant is cooking, make your glaze. Combine all the other ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk together and let it reduce while the eggplant gets tender and delicious. The whisking takes pretty much no time so you’ll have some time to do another chore. Water your plants! Empty the dishwasher! Change clothes!
When the eggplant is done, turn them all over on the tray. Spoon glaze over them and put them back in the oven for about ten minutes.
These aren’t pretty. But cooked eggplant rarely is, huh? At least that’s been my experience. Anyway, I sprinkled some sesame seeds on here to make it maybe look more attractive. But nope. Still ugly as sin.
I mean, look. I tried to at least arrange them nicely. But they look like a bunch of rotten bananas here.
Edit: I’m tagging this gluten-free, but it is only gluten-free if you choose the right brands of soy sauce and miso paste.
