>> Chinese Vegetable Recipe
Chinese Eggplant & Dry Mushroom (Video)

This Chinese eggplant (aubergine) recipe is inspired from a popular Hunan local dish, called clay pot cooked eggplant (qie zi bao 茄子煲). I adapted it as a non-clay-pot version. Scroll down to watch the cooking video.

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In my hometown, there is a restaurant next to the food market which makes a lovely version of this eggplant dish, which is one of my favorite Hunan local dishes.

The eggplant is slowly cooked with the shredded pork and soaked Chinese dry mushroom, plus Hunan small red chilies and bean paste. Once cooked, they would bring the whole clay pot to the table, sizzling, steaming and bursting with a rich flavor.

This time I make this dish a non-clay pot version. Because I don’t have the clay pot, I just use a medium size sauce pan. I know this might not have that special wow factor as using the clay pot, but I still cannot help trying this. I made it for this year New Year party and my Chinese friends loved it.

If you are a vegetarian, you can use this recipe, just don't include the minced meat, the dish will still have the flavor from the dried mushroom. 

Prep: 10 mins   Cook: 20-30 mins

Ingredients

• 2 medium size eggplants
• 6 Chinese dry mushroom
  
• 100g cooked pork mince (optional)
  
• 2 tbsp oil
  
• ½ tsp salt
  
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp Chinese chili bean paste
  
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce 
  
• leek
• ginger
  
• spring onions
  

Method for Chinese Eggplant & Dry Mushroom

• cut the eggplant into small chunks. Drench them to absorb some water.
  

• soak the dry mushroom according to the instruction on the package (if available). I normally do this in the night before.

• Once socked, cut the mushroom into small pieces.
  

• slice leek and ginger into the thin threads. cut the spring onions.
  

• Heat the frying pan until it is very hot. Add oil, wait till high heat.
• Add dry mushroom, leek, ginger and chili bean paste, fry about 2-3 minutes or till fragrant.
  

• Add eggplant to fry, add salt and sugar and mix well.
• If prefer, you can add the cooked pork mince. Mix and cook for 3-5 minutes.
  

• Transfer the eggplant to the sauce pan (or clay pot if available). Add water or stoke, medium heat, slowly cook for 15-20 mins or till eggplant softened.
• Before finish, garnish spring onions on the top. Serve immediately.
  

Tips:

Before cooking, use water drench the already cut eggplant. This helps the eggplant to absorb some water instead of oil. The final dish will look nicer. Otherwise, the eggplant would absorb more oil than expected.    

You can watch the cooking video here. To get the regular update for more videos, please subscribe to my Youtube Channel. 

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