Chinese Vegetarian Recipes

Braised Eggplant

braised eggplant

Introduction:

As you can see, this picture looks bad. That is because I took it at night and the splash light was too sharp. Okay, it’s not necessary to make explanations. When you come up with the delicious looking dish yourself by referring to the following braised eggplant recipe, you will know what it is supposed to look like. Now lets jump directly into the recipe itself.

Ingredients:

Long and thin eggplants: 2 (whole eggplants)

Shiitake mushrooms: 3 (whole mushrooms)

Dried wood ear mushrooms: 4 (whole wood ears)

Tomato: 1 (medium-sized whole tomato)

Seasonings:

Scallion: 1 tablespoon (coarsely chopped)

Minced ginger: 1 teaspoon

Minced garlic: 1 teaspoon

Cooking wine: 1 tablespoon

Soy sauce: 2 tablespoon

White sugar: 1 teaspoon

Vinegar: 1/2 teaspoon

MSG: 1/3 teaspoon

Starch: 1 teaspoon

Vegetable oil: 3 tablespoons

Preparation Work:

1. Wash the eggplants clean, peel and cut them into thick slices (3 centimeters thick), then cut both sides of the slices with the knife cutting into the surface only (not going through), and cut the slices into pieces;

2. Immerse the wood ear mushrooms into hot water, and rip them into smaller pieces with hands when they are softened;

3. Wash the Shiitake mushrooms clean, remove their stems, slice them and immerse them into hot water for one minute and strain them out;

4. Wash the tomato clean and cut it into pieces similar to the eggplant pieces;

5. Get the chopped scallion, minced ginger and garlic ready;

6. Take a big bowl, place the chopped scallion, ginger mince, garlic mince, wood ears and shiitake mushroom slices into it, add the cooking wine, soy sauce, white sugar, vinegar and MSG into the bowl, and blend what is in the bowl fully together; (This will act as the seasoning liquid.)

Cooking Steps:

1. Pour the vegetable oil into the wok and put the wok on high heat or full flame;

2. Add the eggplant pieces into the wok and stir fry when the oil gets hot, stir slowly at a consistent rhythm until the oil gets back out, then turn off the heat or flame and take the eggplant pieces out and leave the oil in the wok;

3. Then rinse the eggplant pieces with hot water (this is an optional step);

4. Continue to heat the wok;

5. Pour the seasoning liquid into the wok and boil it;

6. Drop the tomato pieces and the fried eggplant pieces into the wok;

7. Thicken the soup with starch melted with water when the tomato and eggplant become tasty with the tastes of the seasonings;

8. Ready for serving.

Cooking Tips:

If you want deep-fry the eggplant instead, then the eggplant pieces should be dipped into the melted starch and then into dry starch. This way, the eggplant will be not greasy after deep-frying.

Related recipes:

1. Eggplant Recipes – Stir-fried Purple Eggplant with Garlic
2. Eggplant Recipes – Fried Eggplant Seasoned with Caraway
3. Spicy Eggplant Shreds
4. Fish-flavored Eggplant Recipe
5. Sauteed Potato, Green Pepper & Eggplant
6. Deep-fried Eggplant Slices
7. Dough Drop and Assorted Vegetable Soup