Aubergines and Red Onions Roasted with Marsala

Vegan

This is a lovely way to cook aubergines and red onions - and the oven does most of the work for you.

Serves:

2 - 3

Time:

10 minutes preparation, 40 minutes baking time. Add 2 hours marination time for a more developed flavour if you can.

Gluten free

No nuts

No sesame

No soya

Reduced fat

Ingredients:

2 medium aubergines
3 red onions, peeled and quartered (When quartering onions, try to leave some of root base-plate attached as this helps preventing them falling apart.)
Small bunch of fresh lemon thyme or ordinary thyme.(Pick leaves off as carefully as possible. It doesn’t matter if you leave some stems attached but get rid of any particularly woody bits.)
Half a lemon, scrubbed and cut into about 8 chunks
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt
340ml/12fl oz sweet Marsala – or sweet sherry if you can’t obtain it (Harvey's Cream is vegan but see the link for other brands)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

2. Cut aubergine into chunks about same size as onion quarters.

3. Put prepared vegetables, lemon pieces and thyme into a large bowl, add olive oil and give a good swirl about so oil evenly distributed.

4. Now add a little salt, pour on Marsala and swirl again. You can leave it all to marinate for up to 2 hours at this stage, if you like, although this is not crucial. Place marinated vegetables and their liquid in a wide, shallow baking dish or tin, cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes.

5. Remove foil, give dish stir and bake uncovered for a further 10-15 minutes, until vegetables are slightly browned and cooking liquid has reduced to a few tablespoons of intense, syrupy sauce.