Lunch Week 13: Braised Eggplant and Mushrooms with Black Bean Garlic Sauce

So every Sunday, I head over to the kitchen to whip up a big batch of food for lunch next week. Yes, I brown bag. And I almost always do it, unless I become too busy to even buy cold cuts from the deli. I do it for several reasons being health, finance, and laziness. Now, you may think that spending hours on a day off to prep and cook five meals at once is hardly lazy. But let me remind you, I hate it when the time comes to decide what to eat for lunch every day. I work in Midtown so the choices are endless. My problem, the more choices, the harder it is for me. So it's much easier for me to have my lunch ready and already decided.

So my lunch for the week: Braised Eggplant and Mushrooms with Black Bean Garlic Sauce

Back to Asian this week. I wanted to make an eggplant casserole dish that I often get at Chinese restaurants. It's fried eggplant braised in black bean garlic sauce. It's delicious! They also make a version with fried oysters and fried fish. Both also very flavorful and delicious.


I started with the main components of the dish. Since I'm not using meat (pork is usually used in this recipe), I used tofu instead. This is where you want to use very firm tofu. Here I have smoke tofu which is very flavorful on its own. A nice touch of smoke flavor in a dense block of tofu.

I sliced up the pieces to evenly distribute in the pot.

Chopped scallions (whites and greens) for its sweetness and freshness.

Sliced king mushrooms for meatiness and earthiness.

And large chunks of eggplant. I used the skinny, long eggplant in this dish.

I lightly coated the pieces in flour then fried them until crisp.

Browned and delicious. I could eat these as is but I resisted the urge to snack and placed them aside for the casserole.

Then I stated my layers. First mushrooms on the bottom followed by a layer of scallions, then fried eggplant and lastly the smoke tofu.

I also layered in the sauce which was chicken stock (it congealed naturally - a good sign), dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, chopped black bean, chopped garlic, black bean garlic sauce, and oyster sauce. This needs no salt since the sauce ingredients are salty to begin with.

I kept layering the ingredients until the pot was full. If I ran out of the sauce, I used water. Then onto the stove until it comes up to a simmer. Into the oven at 350oF for 2 hours until everything is nice and tender.

I scooped out the vegetables and strained the sauce. I placed the pot back on the stove to reduce the sauce until thick and syrupy. I tasted it for seasoning and naturally it was very salty from the soy sauce. I added a bit of sugar to counter. A last taste gave me a very rich, savory and sweet sauce. It was viscous like syrup.

I served this with white rice to balance out the richness of the sauce. And it was excellent! Wow, concentrating the black bean garlic sauce was key. Honestly I could just eat the rice with the sauce. It was THAT good. Oh man, it brought me back straight to childhood. Memories... Okay, I digress. Anyway, as you already know the sauce was killer. But how about the vegetables and tofu? Well, they added so much texture that the dish seemed meaty without having any meat in it. Sure, it would taste better with pork but honestly, I was very much satisfied without it.