As these glorious pops of baby eggplants are slowly roasting away in a sweet yet tart homemade tamarind sauce, prepare the burgundy tipped red oak lettuce, crunchy pomegranate arils and sweet fresh raspberries. What a feast!
In the flesh of the baby eggplant, score on vertical cut down the length and 2 to 3 scores horizontally. By scoring the eggplant, it allows the sauces to seep right into the flesh.
Baste a ceramic baking dish with 1 tsp of olive oil.
Place eggplant on baking dish, skin side down.
In a small mixing bowl, add tamarind paste, brown sugar, honey, 1 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tsp olive oil. Whisk until well combined.
Place baby eggplant on a baking dish, skin side down.
Place in the oven for 50 minutes.
Salad
In a small mixing bowl, add pepitas and 1 tbsp of soy sauce. Mix well. On a sheet pan, lay out the pepitas and place in the oven with the eggplant for the last 5 minutes.
Deseed the pomegranate.
Wash and dry the red oak lettuce leaves.
Dressing
With the remaining sauce for the baby eggplant, add 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar to make salad dressing.
Mix until well combined.
Assembly
In a medium sized mixing bowl, add the salad dressing to the red oak lettuce leaves. Toss until well combined.
On a nice large platter, place the lettuce to cover the whole platter. Make sure the soft leaves face the outside of the platter and the stems in the middle of the platter.
Add the roasted baby eggplants on top.
Add half the raspberries. Tuck some in between the leaves.
Sprinkle half the roasted soy pepitas.
Then add the rest of the raspberries followed by the rest of the pepitas.
Season with salt and pepper.
Serve.
Notes
If you’re not able to find baby eggplants, any eggplant will do. You can cut the long, skinny eggplants into 4 or the really large ones into 10-12 pieces. You can even present the large eggplant in its large half too if you like.
Any lettuce would do but try selecting one with soft leaves. Iceberg lettuce, for example, wouldn’t be a good choice.
You will be able to find tamarind paste in the Asian section of your supermarket or any Asian grocer.
If you only like to use the pulp, don’t add too much water as we need it more like a paste than of a thin viscosity. This will enable the eggplant to roast nicely.
You can use strawberries as a substitute for raspberries.
Maple syrup or organic rice malt syrup will also work instead of honey if you need a vegan recipe.
Substitute soy sauce with tamari for the pepitas if you need a gluten free recipe.