Red-Braised Eggplant
红烧茄子
English:Red-Braised Eggplant
Chinese: 红烧茄子
Pinyin: hong shao qiezi
Eggplant season in Beijing, as anyone with a little roof garden knows, starts at the beginning of July. It’s a cause for celebration, but also frustration. Eggplants of all shapes and sizes have started to pile up. The fridge is stuffed full, the pantry has bags of the things and there are more on the plants outside. It’s a struggle to cook them quicker than they ripen. Being seasonal with cooking is a quant idea, but the flip side is trying to eat five eggplants a day with no end in sight.
It’s time to pull out every eggplant recipe I know. The first is ‘red-braised eggplant’, a quicker version of the Chinese classic pork dish: hong shao rou. When I first came to China, I ordered hong shao qiezi as a gai fan (a dish that comes with rice), almost every night after work from a local restaurant. Their version also had the odd potato in it too. Indeed, I’ve added a tomato and green pepper in my recipe (both also growing in abundance at the moment) but you can leave them out if you want.
Oh, and yes, I am English, but most people in China struggle to understand ‘aubergine’ so over time I adapted to the American word.
Serves 2
Ingredients
2 eggplants
2 tablespoons starch
1 tomato - diced
1 garlic - finely chopped
2 green onions - chopped
1 small green pepper - diced
For the sauce
3 garlic cloves - finely chopped
1 large chilli (deseeded) - finely chopped
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 table spoon dark soy sauce
3 tablespoon water
Method
Use a vegetable peeler to peel away strips of the eggplant skin from top to bottom, leaving alternating strips of black skin with white flesh.
Slice the eggplants in half, then slice diagonally, so you have long wedges.
Put the wedges into a colander and salt all over (about 1 teaspoon or so), then leave to sit for at least 20 minutes until the salt draws out the water. Don’t skip this step when cooking eggplant, otherwise the veg will absorb oil like a sponge.
Prepare the rest of the ingredients: dice the tomato, finely chop the garlic, chop the green onions, and dice the green pepper into large one-inch squares.
Also use this time to make the sauce: in a small bowl, add all the ingredients and mix until the sugar has dissolved.
When the eggplant is ready, use kitchen paper to wipe the water and salt from the slices, squeezing slightly as you add the eggplant to a mixing bowl. The paper will probably need to be changed once or twice as it will get very wet.
Sprinkle the cornstarch over, coating all the wedges as evenly as possible.
Heat a wok over a medium heat, add a tablespoon of oil and when hot, add the eggplant pieces and fry until golden on each side, then remove.
Add a drop more oil if needed, then fry the garlic, green onions and green pepper for a minute. Add the tomato, fry for another 30 seconds or so, then add the eggplant back to the pan and pour over the sauce. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the sauce becomes thick and sticky, turning the vegetables every now and again. It will probably take about 3-4 minutes.
