Fish Fragrant Eggplant (魚香茄子)

(serves 4)

Adapted from Smoky Wok

This is an amazingly oily eggplant dish, which is equally amazingly aromatic and delicious! Usually i steer away from oily dishes like these, but there are always a couple of exceptions to the rule. It's a traditional Sichuan dish which involves no fish, but apparently the name comes from the fact that this sweet, salty slightly chilli sauce was popular with fish dishes, and this eggplant version may have been for the commoners who couldn't afford fish. I love commoner food! The eggplant is so soft and soaks up the flavour of the chilli bean sauce... just a slightly spicy undertone makes it perfect for warming you up on a chilli night!

Prep time: 20 min

Cooking time: 30 min

Ingredients:

1 big eggplant (400-500g)

500g pork mince (250g regular, 250g lean)

1 tsp cornflour

2 T finely chopped ginger 

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 stalks of shallots

Sauce:

2 T Chilli Bean Sauce

3 T soy sauce

2 T sugar

1.5 T black Chinkiang vinegar 

1/4 C water

2 tsp cornflour + 2 tsp cold water (optional)

Method:

1. Cut the eggplant into short thick slices (approx 1cm x 1cm x 3cm).

2. Shallow-fry the eggplant on medium-high heat until slightly brown and set aside. As you remove it from the pan with thongs, try to squeeze out a little bit of oil!

NB. You may need to do this in 2 batches, and may need to re-fill the oil as the eggplant soaks a LOT of oil.. but it's necessary i guess.

3. Mix the cornflour into the mince.

4. Leaving about 1 T oil in the frypan, lower the heat to low-medium heat and add in the ginger, garlic and shallots. Fry for 30 sec or so until aromatic.

5. Add in the pork mince, breaking it up and cooking for 2-3 minutes.

6. Mix the sauce in a separate bowl, then add to the pork mince and cook for 5 minutes.

7. Add in the eggplant, bring to the boil then simmer for 10-15 minutes. 

NB. More oil will be released as you continue cooking. If you find that the sauce isn't thick enough after 15 minutes, then add the cornflour and water and mix through.

8. Spoon out the eggplant and mince into a separate bowl to serve, keeping only about half the oil (i forgot to this time and it is sitting in a rather large pool of chilli oil!). Garnish with shallots and serve with rice!