Adobong Talong (Spicy Eggplant Adobo)
With a few pantry staples, you can turn Asian eggplants into an exciting and relishingly spicy, tangy, vegan Filipino adobo dish.
Ingredients
Eggplant & Chillies
- 4-5 pieces of Asian eggplants cut into 2 inch pieces
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper cracked or ground
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 red birds eye (Thai) chillies
For cooking
- 4 tablespoons cooking oil plus more if needed
- 1 small onion diced
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- ¼ cup soy sauce 60ml
- ⅓ cup coconut vinegar 80ml
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar heaped
- 2 dried bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon pepper cracked or ground
- 1 teaspoon of dried garlic garnish
Instructions
Prepare the eggplant & chilli
- Using a chopping board and sharp knife, chop the green stem off. Then cut the eggplant into quarters lengthwise. Then cut each quarter into 2 inch length pieces.
- Place eggplant pieces into a bowl.
- Add ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper and 1 tablespoon sugar. Then toss to combine. Set aside for 20 minutes.
- Using a chopping board, roll the chillies to release the seeds inside. Then thinly slice the chillies. (If you don’t want the dish to be too spicy, keep the chillies whole).
- After 20 minutes, place the eggplants on some clean paper towel and pat the eggplant dry to take away any moisture that the salt has drawn out. Set aside.
Cooking Method
- Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan.
- Working in batches (and adding more oil if needed), cook eggplant in the heated pan until lightly browned, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate with some clean paper towel to absorb excess oils and set aside.
- Heat the remaining oil (2 tablespoons) in the same pan.
- Add onions and garlic. Saute for 1-2 minutes until fragrant.
- Add chillies and saute for 1 minute.
- Add soy sauce, vinegar, dried bay leaves, 1 tablespoon sugar and ½ teaspoon pepper.
- Turn the heat up to high and bring to a boil. Then turn the heat down to a simmer.
- Return the eggplants back into the pan and simmer for 20 minutes or until the eggplants are tender and the sauce reduced.
- Turn the heat off.
- Transfer eggplants onto a serving plate and sprinkle dried garlic all over.
Notes
- For best results, use the Asian eggplant variety such as Chinese or Japanese eggplants. These types of eggplants have a milder flavour and are not bitter like the American globe eggplants that are commonly seen at most western grocery stores.
- Bird’s eye chillies are quite spicy. Therefore, if you don’t like very spicy dishes, you can do one of the 3 following things to take away some of the heat. You can either keep the chillies as a whole, or remove the seeds before slicing them. Alternatively, you can eliminate the chillies altogether from the recipe for a non-spicy dish.
- As eggplants easily soak up flavours, I highly recommend using only regular all purpose soy sauce or gluten-free soy sauce for this recipe. Gluten-free soy sauces that I regularly use are Kikkoman Gluten-Free Soy Sauce and San-J Tamari Gluten-Free Soy Sauce.
- It is important to note that a milder and sweeter tasting vinegar like coconut vinegar will work best for this recipe. You can also use rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar. While it is ok to use regular white vinegar, you will get a more tangy flavour with white vinegar.
- If you’re craving for some meat with this dish, you can also add a bit of ground pork (100g) as an option. After browning the eggplants, heat some oil in the same pan and add the pork. Break up the pork into smaller pieces with your cooking utensil. Season with a bit of kosher salt and let it cook undisturbed (until deeply browned underneath) for about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Then continue with the recipe as above.