Chinese Style Steamed Eggplant.
I have been experimenting with eggplant for ages. Looking for a way to recreate silky, tender dishes enjoyed in restaurants without copious amounts of oil. Up until now I have failed, miserably. Greasy, burned, crunchy, tasteless, I tell you, raw eggplant is pretty unpleasant.
So I gave up, until I found this recipe. Finally, some delicious eggplant success!
Of course, steam it! It seems so simple, so obvious that the way to keep the eggplant juicy without it soaking up too much grease is to make it soak up steam. I had to get the old bamboo steamer out of retirement, actually, I had to save it from its impending rubbish bin doom, and I am so glad I did. Though, it still isn’t as good as the Braised Eggplant in Special Sauce from the Chinese Noodle Restaurant, but it is certainly cleaner tasting and much healthier.
Chinese Style Steamed Eggplant
Adapted from Steamed Eggplant Salad by Kylie Kwong
2 eggplants
4 spring onions
For Dressing:
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
2T white vinegar
1T sugar
1T soy sauce
1t sesame oil
2T shao hsing wine.
Cut eggplant into 1/5 cm strips. Sprinkle eggplant with salt and set aside for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the dressing. Place all ingredients in a small pan and bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until slightly thickened, set aside.
Rinse salt from eggplant and dry. Place eggplant in a single layer on a heatproof plate inside a chinese steamer over boiling water. Cover and steam for about 10 minutes or until the eggplant is tender. Remove from steamer and carefully mix through with dressing and sliced spring onions.
Serve hot or warm, as an accompaniment to a larger asian style meal.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
12 Comments
This was so good. The texture.. soft and squishy and full of juicy flavour, but just enough resistance to make biting each piece so satisfying.
/ironchefjudge.
Thanks for visiting my site. Come again! I love the look of your eggplant. I need to experiment more with that. Thanks for the inspiration!
F: Thanks for the mad props! I don’t think that you have nearly enough oooh’ing and aaaah’ing in there to be an iron chef judge, i think.
Shari
No worries, your blog is lovely! Steaming is definitely the way to go to get healthy and delicious eggplant.
Oooh, pretty! I’m a sucker for anything eggplant.
Irene: Thanks! Eggplant is so delicious when prepared properly, and so utterly disappointed when not. Thanks for stopping by!
ohhhh the eggplant at chinese noodle restaurant is one of my favourites! (its only real rival for me is at kiroran silk road uyghur) and i know re: the oil and the bitter and the burnt issues. steaming is a fantastic idea. must try.
shez: Where is kiroran silk road uyghur? I must go there and try their eggplant!
Looks utterly delicious. Love the pictures too. I’ve got a steamed eggplant recipe somewhere that I’ve been meaning to try!
Found this recipe through google last night – I had a beautiful eggplant I needed to use and I was craving something Chinese. It turned out beautifully, the flavours delicate enough that the eggplant really shines. Eating leftovers for lunch now! Thank you!
Oh, that is so lovely to hear. Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice recipe. I’ll be doing this one again. One thing though – what are the brown chunks in the picture? They don’t really look like garlic, but I can’t figure out what else they’d be.
Rebecca: The brown things are garlic. They are that colour because they get simmered in the dressing. Glad you enjoyed it!