Ambitious Deliciousness – Dont Eat Lazy.

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.

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Editor’s Note: An important, updated version of this recipe can be found here.

Before we bid farewell to winter, I wanted to share this simple hot and sour recipe. This is one of my favorite soups to eat whenever I eat Chinese food, which I realize, is not very often. But now that I know how to make it, I can enjoy it anytime I want!

All of the soups I’ve had at restaurants use cornstarch as a thickener. While I don’t mind it, I didn’t want a big pot of gloppy soup so I omitted corn starch. It’s up to you!

I would recommend cooking pork on the frying pan, then deglazing the pan for extra flavor. Sorry to say that I actually ended up omitting a few ingredients that I didn’t have on hand (bamboo shoots, pork, white pepper).

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My Chinese culinary skills are almost non-existent so I thought this would be a good way to practice. I was happy to learn that I could eat this dish and not pass out from the sodium/msg overload.

Let me pause here for a second and say thanks to everyone who has been so encouraging throughout my blogging journey so far! As always, feel free to leave suggestions.

One thing to note – your email addresses that you enter when commenting are not public. And I won’t send you spam; unless it’s the edible kind. :)

2009 is going to be a great year! Happy early new year!

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