An Atypical Life

Modified from http://cookpad.com/mykitchen/recipe/544198/ .

Ingredients

• 4 baby eggplant (aubergines)
• 150g ground pork
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• 1 thumb ginger, finely minced (about double the volume of your garlic)
• 1/2 tsp. doubanjiang, aka 辣豆瓣酱
• 1/2 tsp. this stuff (can anyone help with a real English name other than “maaraajyan”?
• 1 tsp. Chinese sweet black miso, aka 甜麺醤
• 1/2 tsp. chicken bone soup boullion dissolved in 150mL water (can substitute chicken boullion or 150mL real chicken bone stock)
• 1 Tbsp. Shaoxing rice wine (or other Chinese cooking rice wine)
• 2 tsp. dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp. hot sesame oil (or more to taste)
• 2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 Tbsp. potato starch (or wheat or corn starch, if you absolutely must), dissolved in 2 Tbsp. water
• 1/2 green onion, chopped or diced finely
• Some Szechuan peppercorns

Cut the eggplants in half, scoring on the skin at a 45 degree angle to the length of the eggplant. Soak the eggplant in salted water for 5 minutes, then drain. Stir-fry eggplant in hot wok and canola oil. Remove eggplant from pan. Drain oil. Brown ground pork in wok. Add all seasonings, save potato starch/water mixture, green onion and Szechuan peppercorns. Cook for 45-60 seconds to reduce liquid by half. Remove from heat, adding starch/water slurry to thicken sauge. Serve over medium-grain sticky white rice; season at table with freshly ground Szechuan peppercorns and green onion.

This recipe also makes excellent mapo tofu by substituting firm tofu for the eggplant.

Pictures coming soon.