Chinese Vegetarian Recipes

Fish-flavored Eggplant Recipe

Eggplant with Dou Ban Jiang

Introduction:

Seen from the title or name of this dish, it seems like not vegetarian. However, this is the name that the Chinese people give it, especially in the Sichuan style cooking. You will see that it is vegetarian when you see the recipe details below.

As a matter of fact, I don’t know why people call it that way either because there’s not any sign of fish at all. The only clue might be the taste and the flavor that the eggplant pieces will give you after they are cooked. It’s a judgment call.

In this recipe, we will adopt a very important sauce that is called Pixian Dou Ban Jiang. Pixian is a place located in the Sichuan province. Dou ban jiang is a sauce that is made of chili peppers and broad bean. You can find the Wikipedia explanation here. This sauce is important because the flavor of the dish is mainly attributed to this sauce.

Ingredients:

Eggplant: 300 g

Seasoings:

Scallion: 5 g (finely diced)

Ginger: 5 g (finely diced)

Garlic: 5 g (finely minced)

Cooking wine: 5 g

Pixian Dou Ban Jiang: 50 g

White sugar: 20 g

Vinegar: 20 g

Soy sauce: 10 g

Starch: 15 g (melt in water)

Vegetable soup stock: 1/2 cup

Vegetable oil: 30 g

Preparation Work:

1. Dice the scallion, ginger and garlic finely;

2. Peel the eggplants and cut them into pieces;

3. Fry the eggplant pieces in hot oil (not included in the 30 g vegetable oil listed as the seasonings) until they are soft;

4. Strain the pieces out of the oil.

Cooking Steps:

1. Pour the vegetable oil into the wok;

2. Drop the Pixian dou ban jiang into the oil when it is 80% hot and stir;

3. Add the diced scallion, ginger and garlic in when the aroma comes out;

4. Add in the white sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, soup stock and cooking wine;

5. Drop the fried eggplant pieces into the wok and stir fry;

6. Thicken the soup with melted starch when the soup is getting dried.

Cooking Tips:

I don’t feel like deep-frying things. And as we know, eggplant is a big oil consumer. I have a small tip to share in this respect. I normally preheat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in the wok. When the oil is hot, drop the eggplant pieces or strips or whatever shape they are cut into in the wok and stir quickly. Keep stirring.

As you stir, you will find that the oil is quickly absorbed into some of the eggplant pieces at the beginning. Don’t mind. Just keep stir it. (Stirring can keep the pieces from being burnt.)

Minutes later, you will find that the oil comes back out of the eggplant. That’s weird but true. Then you can just strain the eggplant out. This is a two birds with one stone thing because the eggplant becomes soft and fried and the oil remaining is enough for the stir frying that follows.

During the process, you can turn down the heat a little bit.