Eggplant ‘Sandwiches’
炸茄盒
English: Eggplant ‘Sandwiches’
Chinese: 炸茄盒
Pinyin: zha qie he
A final eggplant recipe for the summer months, this is the trickiest one of the lot, and certainly the most unhealthy. I call them ‘sandwiches’ but the Chinese translation of he is box or package. Basically they are a little eggplant wraps stuffed with seasoned minced pork, then dredged in batter and deep fried. The excellent Ms Zhu from Omnivore’s Cookbook refers to them as ‘fried dumplings’ and eggplant ‘burgers’ with the eggplant as the bread.
I used to see zha qie he all over Beijing back in the day, rows of the pre-fried packages behind glass cabinets next to stuffed breakfast buns and shao bing, but they’re starting to disappear - a part of the unrefined cooking that Beijing’s middle-classes have moved away from in favour of mall restaurants and the exotic Southern cuisines of Sichuan and Yunnan. But good food is timeless, and this is definitely worth making to impress guests.
There’s a bit of a process to making these, so definitely not for a quick dinner. There are basically three steps: cutting the eggplant, making the stuffing and deep frying. There is a bit of a unique cutting technique here, not too hard, but essential for this dish to work. You need to alternative cuts, so first cut through the eggplant, then cut 80% of the way through, and then cut all the way through, so you end up with a little eggplant pouch, perfect for stuffing. The deep-frying should be done in the largest pan you have (I used my wok), otherwise the frying will take forever, with one or two frying at a time. You can re-fry these to heat up, and after the second frying, I find these stay crispier much longer.
Serves 4 - 6
Ingredients
2 Chinese eggplants (about 500g)
For the stuffing
300g minced pork
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
2 teaspoons ginger - finely chopped
1 teaspoon five spice powder
2 green onions - finely chopped
1 egg
For the batter
80g flour
50g cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon five spice
2 eggs
150ml Cold water
For frying
3/4 cups of oil
Method
First, make the batter: in a medium bowl, add the flour, cornstarch, salt, spice and eggs and whisk into a smooth paste. Add enough cold water until the batter is thin like a pancake batter. Set aside.
Make the stuffing: in a medium bowl, add all the ingredients and mix with a pair of chopsticks until combined, then set aside.
Cut the eggplant: try to find the longer, thinner Chinese/Japanese eggplants for this dish. If you use Italian ones, they will be too fat to stuff, and more watery, making this method a bit of a challenge. For the cutting technique, you need to alternate cuts: first, cut through the eggplant, then move the knife up about 1.5cm and cut about 80% of the way through, then move another 1.5cm up and cut straight through. This will give you one eggplant package. Repeat the process until you’ve cut both eggplants. You’ll probably end up with about 20 packages.
Next, add the stuffing into each one. It will probably be somewhere between 1 and 2 tablespoons, but that’s a rough guide as your eggplant slices will be quite different in size depending on whether they’re from the middle or the ends. You don’t want to overstuff the eggplant. If the stuffing is seeping out of the sides, it’s too much. Repeat until all the packages are stuffed and ready to go.
Pour you oil into a wok or large saucepan. Make sure you fill the pan no more than a 1/3 with oil as it can bubble up. Heat the oil over a medium heat. To test it, dip a chopstick in the batter and then into the oil. If the batter sizzles, it’s ready.
Next, dredge each eggplant package in the batter and then lower slowly into the hot oil. Let it cook for about 2 minutes on each side, turning down the oil if the batter is browning too quickly. You’ll need to cook in batches, so remove the fried ones onto a wire rack or kitchen paper. Serve when hot and crunchy.
Note: they can be prepared in advance, just fry them all off, store, and then fry again for 30 seconds or so to bring the crunch back.
