Spicy Sichuan eggplant
15 Jun
This has got to be one of my favorite eggplant dishes, whenever I go to a Sichuan (Szechwan, Szechuan) restaurant, which is not very often.
I had a craving for this specific dish the other day and remembered that I had bookmarked this recipe from the lovely folks at Choosey Beggars a while ago. I included a handful of chilies, as well as extra spicy sauce, which was way to spicy for my liking. It’s been adjusted in the recipe below, so feel free to add more if you want more of a kick! The color is also darker than I’d like, because I went a little crazy with the dark soy sauce. OOPS.
For some reason, I expected this dish to be super complex, but it’s actually super easy to make! It actually tasted even better on the next day, so feel free to make extra to enjoy for a couple of days.
Adapted from Choosey Beggars
Makes 4-6 small servings
Ingredients:
4 large Asian eggplant, chopped into quarters
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of rice wine
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of Sambal Oelek
1tablespoon of dark soy sauce
½ tablespoon of sesame oil
½ tablespoon of corn starch
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1″ knob of ginger, grated
3 small green chilies, seeds removed and split in half
1 teaspoon of oil (high content: vegetable oil, corn oil, peanut oil, or canola oil)
Small piece of green onion, for garnish
Note: One reader commented that there wasn’t enough sauce. Feel free to increase sauce volume by adding more of each sauce ingredient, or even double it!
Procedure:
1. In a bowl, mix together sugar, rice wine, fish sauce, Sambal Oelek, sesame oil. In a separate bowl, mix corn starch with 1 tablespoon of warm water. Set both items aside.
2. Drizzle 1 teaspoon of high-content oil onto a pan (or wok) over high heat.
3. Add green chilies, grated ginger and garlic to the pan. Lower heat and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggplant to the pan. Cook over low heat about 7-8 minutes, until soft.
5. Add marinade mixture to the pan. Stir and allow it to simmer for another 5 minutes. Add scallions.
6. Add corn starch from step 1. The sauce will thicken almost immediately.
7. As a garnish, add green onion on top (in my case, some leftover kale) and serve over rice.
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