My usual spring vegan diet proved to be rather persistent this year, as it’s already summer and I still have a craving for vegetables, only. I love aubergines, they are one of my favorite veggies, so I tried to come up with a weekend lunch menu where they could have the main role: not layered, not stuffed, and a main course, of course. 🙂
After doing my “literature search” I also found out the secret to wonderfully caramelized onions, and the end result turned out to be something absolutely worthy of inaugurating our newest favorite plates.
After doing my “literature search” I also found out the secret to wonderfully caramelized onions, and the end result turned out to be something absolutely worthy of inaugurating our newest favorite plates.
Like every decent foodie, I am also fond of beautiful plates and glasses. A couple of months after the 3rd anniversary of my first (Hungarian) food blog, my husband, Z took me out to my favorite home design shops and talked me into buying 1-2 pieces of my favorite kinds of plates that caught my eye actually 1-2 years ago… 🙂 Luckily (?) I am a girl who doesn’t really like shopping: I alwas find a reason to rather save those forints for our next big trip (or new kitchen furniture?). So imagine us standing in these shops, while Z, as my official photographer is trying to cinvince me that I absolutely do need those Sumatra plates from Butlers, and that IKEA 365+ bowl that reminds us so much of a Japanese soup bowl.
At first I thought it was going to be funny to have 1-1 or 2-2 pieces of plates/glasses with the same style at home, but in the end we discovered that we like our weekend table this colorful. Finding their place in the cupboard is not so simple, as all these varios shapes just don’t fit easily… Nevermind: one more reason to get new kitchen furniture with more reasonable spaces for all my kitchen stuff. 🙂
Back to the menu. I wished to emphasize the orange color of the red lentils, so I mixed in some carrots and turmeric powder. Are you curious, how I got the onions so beautifully charamel colored? Balsamic vinegar. I didn’t use much, and the vinegar acid boils away quickly, to leave behind only a slight balsamic savor.
Ingredients for 4 servings:
2 aubergines (approx. 700-800g in total)
300g red onions
3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar (aceto balsamico di Modena)
150g red lentils
80g brown rice
1 carrot
1/2 teaspoons of turmeric powder
salt to taste
olive oil for frying
2 aubergines (approx. 700-800g in total)
300g red onions
3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar (aceto balsamico di Modena)
150g red lentils
80g brown rice
1 carrot
1/2 teaspoons of turmeric powder
salt to taste
olive oil for frying
- Begin by preparing the vegetables: rinse the aubergines and cut to 1 cm thick slices, sprinkle with salt and set aside. Peel the onions, cut in half and to thin slices. Peel and cube the carrot. Rinse the rice and red lentils. The latter might be difficult to rinse until the water does not get frothy anymore, so I usually soak it for about 30 minutes, or until the recipe calls for the lentils.
- At first heat the carrot pieces in olive oil, then stir in the rice, as well and heat for 0,5-1 minutes. Pour in enough water to cover the rice, cover with a lid and cook for 25-30 minutes, until the rice is halfway done.
- Fry the aubergine slices in a large, non-stick pan. You’ll need the pan to be slightly hotter than medium heat: if you fry the aubergines like this over 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, they will be done fairly quickly, and won’t soak up all of the oil.
- The rice is halfway done now, so mix in the red lentils, add some salt and the turmeric powder. pour in enough water to cover the lentils and cook under closed lid for 20 minutes, or until the lentils are soft.
- Now is the time to charamelize the onions: you can use the same pan that you used to fry the aubergine slices. Add some olive oil and start frying the onion slices. Once they turn glassy, add the balsamic vinegar. Stirring occasionally, fry until the onion turns golden brown (approx. 15-20 minutes).
There you go: this colorful and fragrant vegan dish waiting only to be served. I know this is not one of the quickest recipes I developed, however, it does not take more than 1 hour or any special culinary skills to prepare this dish. You can also use charamelized onions to top other vegetable-dishes.
I shared this recipe at Gluten Free Friday.
Sounds like a perfectly satisfying meal!
It sure was: we're having it again next week. 🙂
Hi Nori, this looks great! Can't wait to try it. Love your blog, by the way, just started following you on BlogLovin!
This looks really interesting!
Thanks! It's real quick and tasty, too. 🙂