Miso eggplant is one of those flavor combinations that I really wanted to dislike, but actually loved from the get-go. For context, growing up, my mom would always serve bitter melon with miso paste, which caused me to develop a bit of a gag reflex towards vegetables served with miso for a long, long time. Turns out, I just hated the bitter melon, and eventually I grew out of that. What I love about cooking with eggplant is how the texture of it can be crispy, creamy, or spongy, depending on how you choose to cook it. The eggplant in this recipe ironically starts out crispy, since we’re air-frying it, then spongy since we’re pouring a marinade over the air-fried eggplant, and once that settles in, it goes from spongy straight to creamy and silky. The idea was to air fry the eggplant just so it is cooked and has a smokier flavor profile, and then since eggplant is such a natural sponge for other flavors(hence why it’s used a lot in stir-fries and curries), add a sweet and salty miso marinade to it as a way of seasoning it, but also bringing in a pleasant umami flavor. The eggplant takes on the robust flavor of miso, and has this silky, melt-in-the-mouth texture to it that is quite addictive. I would have happily eaten the eggplant as-is, but I wanted to serve it in a way that looked a lot less like slop in a bowl, and onigiri, or Japanese rice balls, felt like the perfect vehicle for my miso eggplant component!

I have made onigiri on this blog before, but I went very traditional in terms of the shaping of them in my most recent previous attempt. This time around, I wanted them to pay a loose homage to eggplants. Originally, I was not even going to dye my rice purple, but it just made so much sense to do that, since eggplants are usually purple – isn’t it kind of weird to think that eggplant has this bright, vibrant purple color to it, yet cooked eggplant just looks brown? Such a shame too, because that purple color is quite beautiful to look at. That being said, since sushi rice is white(and cooks faster than purple forbidden rice), my onigiri took on a light purple hue from the purple carrot powder I added into my rice prior to cooking it. I paired that with shiso or perilla leaves, which adds a pleasant perfume-y quality to the fluffy rice. That and it kind of resembles the leaves on an eggplant, which honestly get very overlooked. These rice balls were quite filling, and while this is a vegan recipe, they are quite tasty too! The eggplant has a meat-like quality to it that really makes the onigiri a hearty snack or treat!

Makes 8 onigiri:
For the roasted eggplant:
1 Japanese eggplant
cooking spray

Slice the eggplant into 1/8-inch pieces. Spray with cooking spray and either bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes, or air fry at 375 F for 20 minutes. Transfer the eggplant into a bowl.

For the miso marinade:
2 tbsp miso paste
2 tbsp cooking sake
1 tsp shio koji
a pinch of salt

In a pot, heat up the miso paste with cooking sake. Take the pot off heat once the miso is dissolved into the sake, and the sake comes up to a boil. Stir in the shio koji and salt. Pour the marinade over the eggplant and stir until the marinade is soaked into the eggplant itself. Store in an airtight container and refrigerate until time to use.

For the purple rice:
1 cup short grain sushi rice
1 1/4 cups water, plus more for rinsing
1 tsp purple carrot powder
salt

Rinse the rice until the water passing through the grains runs clear. Place the rice in a heatproof bowl or a small handle-less pot, and add to that your water, carrot powder, a pinch of salt. Place into a rice cooker, and cook to its instructions. Keep the rice at least above lukewarm for assembly.

For assembly:
Shiso leaves

Blanch the shiso leaves in hot water for 10 seconds, then shock it in cold water. Before attempting to touch the rice, be sure to wet your hands with lightly salted water. To assemble, start with about 1oz of your cooked rice. Place about 1 tbsp of the eggplant filling into that and press the rice around the sides of the filling to enrobe it, adding additional rice as necessary. Repeat with the remaining onigiri first. With any leftover eggplant, wrap it into the shiso leaves, and garnish the tops of your onigiri with those!