Chinese Sweet and Sour Eggplant with Bell Peppers, Garlic and Ginger
Chinese cuisine is full of quick stir-fried vegetable dishes that are easy to make and very filling. Chinese-style sweet and sour eggplant is a widespread dish with many variations. It turns up in many Asian cuisines and is an important part of street food.
Besides eggplant and bell pepper, recipes for this dish often include other vegetables: chili peppers, broccoli, carrots, green beans, wood ear mushrooms, as well as meat or poultry. These are very interesting recipes, but they're somewhat different from traditional sweet and sour eggplant. Overall, the dish is a bit like a vegetable stew with an exotic flavor, and nothing like the familiar eggplant rolls.
The sweet and sour sauce for the vegetables is made by simply mixing the ingredients. Its base is light natural soy sauce and rice vinegar with brown sugar (cane or molasses sugar). Grated ginger and garlic, traditional spices and dissolved starch go into the sauce. Thanks to the starch, the sauce thickens when it hits the hot fried vegetables.
You can make the sauce not only sweet and sour but noticeably hot, and many people like it that way. A similar sauce is used for kung pao, chicken in soy sauce with peanuts, the famous Sichuan dish. For the acid, the sauce can use rice vinegar or citrus juice, like lemon or lime, or other fruit juices. These additions can really change up the flavor of the dish.
First, you need natural light soy sauce, which is used for stir-frying. Rice vinegar is no longer exotic. It has a pleasant taste and a delicate aroma. Fresh ginger and fragrant garlic are the most important parts of the sauce.
Chinese sweet and sour eggplant isn't hard to make, but it needs your attention and constant involvement. Frying the vegetables is a key step: it determines the texture of the dish and whether the pieces hold together. Don't make the sauce too thick, but it should coat the vegetables evenly, stay juicy and not “swim” on the plate. Fried eggplant in sweet and sour sauce is tasty and filling; it works as a main dish on its own or served with boiled rice.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Eggplants (regular or light-skinned) 4
- Red bell peppers 2
- Red chili pepper optional
- Vegetable oil 50 ml
- Ginger 1 small piece
- Garlic 3-4 cloves
- Light soy sauce 50 ml
- Rice vinegar 2 tbsp
- Brown sugar 1 tbsp
- Tomato paste 1 tbsp
- Cornstarch as needed
- Chili pepper, dried herbs to taste
- Cilantro, sesame seeds for serving
Step-by-step recipe
- You can make eggplant in sauce with any variety. Ideally, they shouldn't have formed seeds yet, as those will show in the dish. We used medium-sized striped eggplants with light lilac skin. It's a very interesting variety, almost always available, but for some reason not very popular here. Choose large sweet red peppers with thick walls. You'll also need garlic and a piece of ginger the size of a matchbox.
- Wash the vegetables and pat them dry. Core the red bell peppers and cut them lengthwise into strips. Since Chinese-style eggplant is eaten with chopsticks, don't cut it too thin: the pieces could lose their shape while cooking and be awkward to eat. Trim the ends of the eggplants and cut them lengthwise into thick sticks. If there are darkened seeds, scrape out as many as you can.
- Heat half the vegetable oil in a frying pan or wok. Chinese cooking usually uses corn, sesame or peanut oil, but ordinary sunflower oil is perfectly fine for home cooking. Add the eggplant pieces to the oil and stir well. Eggplant soaks up oil like a sponge, and the bottom of the pan will soon be dry. Fry the vegetables over medium heat, uncovered, stirring, until soft and lightly browned in spots.
- Add the sliced red bell pepper to the pan. If you like, though it's optional, you can add red chili pepper at this point, cut into thin strips. Pour in the rest of the vegetable oil and stir. Keep frying until the peppers and eggplant are soft. But don't overcook them; the vegetables should still have a little bite.
- While the vegetables are frying, make the sweet and sour sauce. It's easy. Peel the garlic and the piece of ginger, press them through a garlic press and put them in a small bowl. Add 1 tbsp brown sugar, a little chili pepper and 1-2 pinches of dried herbs such as basil or dill. Stir the mixture and add soy sauce, the signature of Chinese cooking, great for all sorts of dishes and a component of many complex sauces and gravies.
- Pour the rice vinegar into the bowl. If you don't have any, you can use white wine vinegar, but not plain distilled vinegar. Stir everything and wait for the sugar to dissolve. Add 1-2 tsp tomato paste and stir. Meanwhile, dissolve 1 tsp cornstarch in 50 ml water and let it sit. Add the starch mixture to the sauce and stir.
- By now the eggplant and peppers are nicely fried. Give the sauce a gentle stir, pour it over the vegetables and immediately stir with a spatula. Thanks to the starch, the sauce thickens very quickly, so keep stirring the eggplant gently and constantly. A wooden spatula is handy for this. Cook the vegetables in the sauce for another 2-3 minutes, and the dish is done.
- Transfer to plates. Sprinkle with a pinch of sesame seeds and finely chopped cilantro. As a rule, the dish is served hot or warm. I've read somewhere that it can be served chilled too. But to my taste, the sauce sets when cold, and I don't like that.
- Eggplant fried with peppers the Chinese way is a hearty and tasty dish. You can serve it with rice as a side or as a standalone vegetable dish. Some recipes add onion, which fits nicely, as well as Chinese five-spice powder. Sometimes the starch doesn't go into the sauce at all; instead, the eggplant pieces are dredged in it before frying.
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 110 |
| Prep: | 15 mins |
| Cook: | 30 mins |
| Total: | 45 mins |
| Category: | Main Dishes |
| Cuisine: | Chinese cuisine |
| Rating: |
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4.9
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