Recipe Result: Pretty good, you can really taste the eggplant itself... but needs more sauce
Growing up, my mom would often make Haitian braised beef with eggplant. The beef would be cooked in a way very similar to my Haitian chicken recipe, but the eggplant was essentially mush, and that made me dislike eggplant as a kid.
Fast forward to my undergrad years. We had some food trucks on campus, a couple of them serving Thai food, and that's where I rediscovered eggplant. Granted that the chopped chicken and eggplant from the Thai trucks was probably loaded with fish sauce and MSG, I realized that eggplant doesn't have to be a beige, flavorless mush.
For a while, I tried to recreate that flavor and texture, but I just didn't understand how to work with eggplant. I'd try to saute and braise it, but it just seemed to absorb all the oil I'd put into the pan, or never really cook all the way through unless I let it over cook and become mush. But lately I've been having some good luck getting that nice texture with stir-frying really quickly over high heat. And there's something about Asian flavors that really makes the eggplant stand out.
So I stumbled upon this recipe while watching a food/travel show on PBS. I've tried it a few times, and I think I've almost nailed it. You can find my recipe after the jump. Give it a try, let me know how you like it, or let me know how you made it even better.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb pork tenderloin, very thinly sliced
- 2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp shaoxing rice wine
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 2 Tbsp vegetable/canola oil
- 1 large Chinese eggplant, sliced into pieces 2-3 inches long and about 1/4 inch thick
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 2 tsp fresh grated ginger
- 1 heaping tsp of chili bean paste (doubanjiang)
- 1/3 cup of water
- 1 Tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
- 2 scallions, thinly sliced
Procedure:
1. Mix 1 Tbsp of the soy sauce with the rice wine and sesame oil, then marinate the sliced pork tenderloin in it for 20-30 min. When done marinating, drain the marinade off and stir-fry the pork on high heat with about 1/2 Tbsp of oil. Stir-fry until the meat is just about cooked through (you're going to put it back into the pan later on, anyway). Remove the pork from the frying pan and set aside.
2. Heat up 1 Tbsp of the vegetable or canola oil on high heat, and stir-fry half the batch of eggplant until the largest pieces are somewhat softened and browned on the edges. Remove the cooked eggplant from the pan and repeat with the other half of the eggplant. Remove the cooked eggplant and set aside.
3. Add a little bit more oil and saute the ginger and garlic until it's fragrant, maybe 30 sec. Then add the chili bean paste and stir-fry for another 30 sec. Combine the remaining 1 Tbsp of soy sauce, the oyster sauce, and the water and pour it into the pan with the ginger/garlic/bean paste mixture. Add the scallions and return the pork and eggplant to the pan. Cook and stir until the sauce has thickened a little.
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