Slice eggplant in half lengthwise. Use a small knife and score halfway down to the skin of the eggplant in a diamond pattern. Place eggplant cut side up on a baking tray and brush with olive oil. Then season with sea salt. Roast in oven for 10 minutes or lightly golden brown.
Make the gochujang glaze by adding gochujang, kecap manis, soy sauce, sesame oil and brown sugar to a small mixing bowl. Whisk until well combined.
Lightly toast sesame seeds in a dry pan until golden brown.
Wash and roughly chop cilantro (coriander).
Finely cut scallion (spring onion) in small rounds.
After 10 minutes, remove eggplant from oven and add a generous coating of gochujang glaze. Keep about 2 tablespoons of glaze to use before serving.
Return to oven and continue to roast until flesh to tender and soft and there is a golden brown char on top.
When eggplant is done, remove from oven. Use remaining gochujang glaze and spread over the top.
Scatter toasted sesame seeds, chopped cilantro (coriander) and scallion (spring onion) on top to serve.
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Notes
Substitute soy sauce for tamari and find a gluten free brand of kecap manis if you need a gluten free recipe. Also, double check the gochujang paste is gluten free. Traditional recipes do not include wheat, but some commercial recipes will use wheat to bulk up the paste.
Gojuchang glaze would be great with other grilled vegetables like zucchini/courgette, bell peppers, red onions, wombok or flat mushrooms. Alternatively, you can try with proteins like roast chicken or grilled tofu as well.
If you don’t have gochujang, you can substitute it with miso paste and change the glaze. Miso paste is salty enough, so you don’t need to add soy sauce, and I would swap the brown sugar with honey. Miso glazed eggplant is a very popular Japanese side dish called nasu dengaku.
You can omit either spring onions or coriander, or both. I love the added texture and freshness spring onion and coriander brings to the dish but can be taken out if you don’t like either one of them.