Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce
By This Chinese eggplant dish comes from the Sichuan cuisine. It is at the same time sharp, sour, salty and sweet, which is typical for dishes from this region of China.
I found beautiful round eggplants at the market! It’s a little early for the season, but I let myself be tempted as they were beautiful!
This Chinese dish is really popular, it can be enjoyed in almost all regions in China. Why so successful? Because it is a gourmet dish that is cheap and requires few ingredients: Chinese eggplant, soy sauce and garlic. This is one of my favorite dishes! 🙂
Yet to do well this Eggplant with Garlic Sauce, that is to say have pieces well fluxes, neither too fat nor too dry, you have to have some patience to cook gently.
The classic version is to first fry the eggplant pieces completely immersing them in oil. But I prefer to make them return conventionally with less oil. It’s less greasy but requires gentle cooking and it must be next to monitor and stir.
| Prep Time | 15 |
| Cook Time | 15 |
| Servings |
- 500 g eggplant
- 2 teaspoon salt
- 2 ml oil (eg peanut or rapeseed oil)
- 500 g lean ground pork
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 piece ginger (about 5 cm long)
- 2 spring onions
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons dark rice vinegar
- 3 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
- 2 teaspoons chilli bean sauce
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns (roasted in a pan and mortared)
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 120 ml chicken broth
Ingredients
seasoning sauce
| |
- The Chinese eggplant cut into strips. Salt the eggplant, enter into a colander and allow to drain for 30 minutes. Then rinse with cold water and dry with paper towels.
- Heat the oil in a saucepan and fry in half the eggplant for 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels and degrease. Now the remaining eggplant fry.
- In a small vessel, all ingredients of the seasoning sauce stir until the sugar has dissolved.
- In a wok or a large frying pan 1 tablespoon oil (from the one in which the eggplant were fried) heat. The ground beef into and fry, stirring constantly for 3 minutes. Ginger, garlic and green onions and cook stir-fry for another 2 minutes. Now the seasoning sauce pour. Boil.
- Add the eggplant and cook over high heat until most of the liquid has evaporated. The sesame oil stir. Serve with rice.
Hello Harpreet,
Absolutely love Szechuan food and your web site bringing authentic Chinese cuisine.
As a fastidious 72 year old foodie, who has been cooking Chinese and other world cuisines since age 14, I am very much wishing to try this recipe. Why in particular? – cos I love aubergine, and am very much attracted to your recipe photo which scrumptiously shows slices of extremely fresh Chinese (possibly Szechuanese?) red chillies. I am drooling already!
Three weeks ago I planted some Szechuan “Facing Heaven” chili seeds, 7 of which germinated and are now pricked out and on their way to becoming sturdy plants !
Only one problem – that your ingredients list does not include ANY fresh chillies. So where do we go from here? OK, I can substitute – and quantity is a matter of taste depending upon hotness – but I would very much like to know –
1) Are the chillies in the photo Chinese, Szechuan or Australian – and
2) What is the name of the particular variety shown in the photo (don’t appear to be Facing Heaven)?
Please advise.
Best wishes , Richard