When I first moved to the UK, I would always get blank looks because I talked about eggplants, zucchini and capsicums rather than aubergines, courgettes and peppers. Eggplant/aubergine has been one of my most beloved vegetables for a long time, particularly cooked Chinese-style so that it becomes soft and luscious and absorbs all the flavours of the sauce. One Melbourne restaurant, the name of which I've unfortunately forgotten, served the most wonderful claypot dish with tofu & eggplant in a black bean and chilli sauce. Another perennial favourite is Sichuan-style aubergine, either the fish-flavour sort (often with minced pork, sometimes also with salt fish though not necessarily) or the kind with a sweet, spicy orange sauce and fresh chopped chillies. The latter is something I've found mainly in Manchester Chinese restaurants and may not be at all authentic, but it is certainly tasty!
Fish-flavour eggplant is an authentic Sichuan cooking style, though, and I sampled several excellent versions on my first trip to China in 2006. I also struggled valiantly to learn the name of the dish in Chinese: eggplant is qie zi, which combines two subtly different versions of the hard sibilant sound (variants of which are transliterated q/z/j/ts/hs/x and none of which I can really tell apart) and is thus very difficult for me to pronounce let alone remember! Nonetheless, with the promise of deliciousness to be had if I could just work out how to order it, I tried very hard, and eventually succeeded well enough to get fish-flavour eggplant in almost every restaurant we visited.
When I returned to England after my travels, I had to satisfy that craving somehow. I went round the corner to one of our many nearby Chinese restaurants and, although it wasn't on the menu, asked if they could make fish-flavour eggplant. I received a blank look from the waiter in return and, figuring he might not have understood what I was asking for, decided to put my new vocabulary into practice -- except that I couldn't remember the word! "Jie-qi? Xie-zhi? Zhuang-hsie?" The waiter just looked more and more confused. Finally it dawned on me: "Aubergine?" Comprehension blossomed on his face and he went off to place my order; I'd been trying to hurdle the wrong language barrier.
This recipe for fish-flavoured aubergine comes out just as tasty as the dish I (finally) managed to order at Happy Seasons, and almost as good as the ones in Beijing. The texture is only very slightly compromised by steaming the eggplant rather than deep-frying it; if you wanted to recreate a version closer to the restaurant-style then deep-frying would probably work too, but I'm too scared to try it given the legendary oil-absorbing properties of the vegetable...
This is based on a recipe from Lizzie Eats London; I reverted to the original minced pork, as I was feeding carnivores; increased the sauce quantities by half (I like sauce!) and changed the method to steam rather than shallow-fry, as I don't think it makes any difference to the taste.
2 large eggplant/aubergine
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2-inch piece ginger, finely shredded
100g minced pork (optional)
40ml chilli bean paste
2 tsp roasted Sichuan peppercorns, crushed
1 tsp light soy sauce
2 tsp dark soy sauce
3 tbs shaoxing (jiaoqing? zhaohsing?) cooking wine
4 tbs chinkiang vinegar
1 tbs sugar
2 tsp cornflour, mixed in a little water
1-2 red chillies, sliced (optional)
2-3 spring onions, finely sliced
dash sesame oil
Cut the eggplant into thick fingers or chunks, place on a covered plate and microwave for 6-8 minutes or until partly softened. Mix the soy sauces, wine, vinegar and sugar together. Heat a bit of oil in a wok and stir-fry the garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add the minced pork and continue to stir-fry until beginning to brown; add chilli paste and Sichuan peppercorns and mix in. Add eggplant pieces and sauce mixture, toss everything together, cover and let everything simmer for about 5-10 minutes until eggplant is fully softened and sauce is slightly reduced. In the last couple of minutes of cooking, throw in chopped chillies; add cornflour mixture and boil for a minute until sauce is thickened. Toss in spring onions and sesame oil.
Makes one restaurant-sized serving -- plenty for five when I made it along with a few other dishes a couple of weekends ago...
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