Chilli-Glazed Aubergine with Chickpea Stew
- Prep Time: 15
- Cooking Time: 40
- Serves: 2
- Difficulty: Moderate
Ingredients
This dish looks stunning and is packed with nutrients on account of it containing at least four of your five a day, including a good mix of greens, roots, legumes and more. The chickpeas pack in plenty of fibre and are a very good source of vegan protein, with the vegan feta providing a nice salty hit and the harissa sauce marrying the whole dish together.
Our recipe here is for two but this dish can easily be scaled up and is perfect for a dinner party or special occasion. You can also make more of the chickpea stew if you want as that can be served without the aubergine and roast veg the following day, perhaps with some pita bread or rice. As with almost all of our recipes you can play around with different spices, flavours and veg, depending on your personal taste or simply what you have in stock. With food this tasty there really is no need for animal-based ingredients so if you want to persuade your friends to give veganism a go, this dish is ideal!
- 2 medium aubergines
- 2 onions
- 120g of cooked chickpeas
- 1 red pepper
- 2 carrots
- Half a head of broccoli
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 100g of vegan feta cheese
- 4 tbs thick vegan yoghurt
- 1 heaped tsp rose harissa
- 1 tbs tomato puree
- 2 tbs chilli sauce*
- 1 tbs sweet chilli sauce
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp sumac
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- Salt and pepper
- 3 tbs of rapeseed oil**
Ingredient Notes
*We recommend Germano’s chilli sauce but any with heat, garlic and smoke would work well
**Olive or sunflower oil will also work fine
Method
- Slice the aubergines in half length-ways, brush with oil and bake for 20 minutes at 170C (fan) on a large baking tray.
- Whilst the aubergine is cooking, make the glaze by combining the two chilli sauces and the juice of half a lime.
- You can also make the harissa yoghurt at this stage by combining… you guessed it, the harissa and the yoghurt.
- Thinly slice the onion, season with salt and pepper and gently soften in a little oil for five minutes (the aubergine should have been cooking for 15 minutes at this stage).
- Cut the red pepper into irregular chunks around 3cm across and then add to the onions, stirring regularly.
- Cut the carrots into medium-sized chunks (we like to halve them and then slice diagonally, as per the picture).
- Cut the broccoli into similar sized florets and then when the aubergine has had 20 minutes roast the carrots and broccoli in a separate tray in a little oil for 10 more minutes (continuing to cook the aubergine).
- After 10 minutes, remove both oven trays and brush half of the glaze evenly across the four cut sides of aubergine, placing the cut side up to allow the glaze to caramelise.
- Give the roast veg a shake and return both trays to the oven for a further five minutes.
- Meanwhile, crush the garlic and add that to onions and pepper. Gently fry for four minutes and then add the chickpeas and spices.
- Once again, remove both trays from the oven and repeat the step above, roasting for a further five minutes.
- Add the tomato puree and sugar to the chickpeas along with around 100ml of water, continuing to stir and reduce.
- At this stage, the aubergines will have had a total of 40 minutes in the oven. They should be soft all the way through and caramelised on top. The roast veg should have been cooking for 20 minutes and should be cooked with a little bit of charring and still retain some bite. The onions have been gently cooking for 25 minutes and should be soft, the flavours of the stew coming together.
- Put half the stew onto each plate as per the picture then drape the two halves of aubergine over it.
- Dot the roast veg around the plates and crumble around half of the vegan feta over the top.
- Dollop some blobs of the harissa yoghurt around the plates and then finish with a squeeze of lime from the remaining half.
The yoghurt and feta can both be omitted for those wanting to avoid any heavily processed foods. Both are pretty mainstream now but they, along with many of the ingredients for this dish can be bought from TheVeganKind Supermarket (among other vegan stores).
The timings for this dish are all guides too and will depend a little on the accuracy of your oven and what size your aubergines, carrots and broccoli florets are. You want plenty of colour on all three and whilst the aubergine should be lovely and soft the other veg can be more al dente.
Whilst this recipe may seem fairly complex, you can’t really go too far wrong with it and it is very forgiving. It has many layers of flavour and the different elements all marry together incredibly well to make an incredible dish (even though we say so ourselves!).
