Home-Style Eggplant in Tomato Sauce
This one grew out of a practical urge to put up a heavy summer eggplant crop in a useful form: rounds of eggplant are fried, layered with onion, carrot, and pepper, then stewed in their own tomato juice and sealed for winter — a preserve with no unnecessary additives.
The step that matters most is salting the eggplant slices and letting them sit for 20 to 30 minutes. This draws out the characteristic bitterness, firms the flesh, and stops it from drinking up oil in the pan. Rinse well afterward or the finished dish turns out too salty.
Cooking Tricks
Rather than jarred tomato juice, good tomato paste thinned one-to-one with water gives a richer result. Stew without stirring so the layers don’t collapse into mush — a gentle rock of the pot is enough. Add the garlic only at the very end, once the heat is nearly off, so it keeps its aroma instead of turning bitter. Serve cold with boiled potatoes, meat, or just fresh bread.
Part of Ukrainian cuisine — 301 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Peel the eggplant, cut into rounds, salt them, and let sit for 20-30 minutes to draw out the bitterness.
Rinse the eggplant with water and pat dry. Fry in oil until golden.
Separately, fry the onion, carrot, and bell pepper.
Layer in a pot: eggplant, onion, pepper, carrot.
Pour in the reduced tomato juice (or tomato paste diluted 1:1 with water) and stew for 10-15 minutes without stirring.
At the end, add the minced garlic and stir gently.
Spoon the hot mixture into sterilized jars, seal, and leave under a blanket until fully cooled.
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