Incredible edible eggplant

Like Oil Braised Spring Bamboo Shoots, today’s dish is often grossly misinterpreted by restaurant chefs, who take the “oil” part of the name too literally and drown these babies in less-than-stellar oil. And it’s a real shame when that happens, for that just makes them soggy and dulls the flavors. 

When made right, the eggplants are quickly pan-steamed to open them up for the sauce, and then slowly braised in an oil-free blanket of soy sauce and seasonings. Only when they are about to be removed from the heat is a smidgen of toasted sesame oil allowed to round out the textures and add a touch of nuttiness.

Another of this region’s brilliant members of the pentoucai brigade, these Oil Braised Eggplants are super simple and simply super. We used to enjoy them at our old favorite Yangtze region restaurants in Taipei, where they would sit expectantly in the fridge at the front of the shop, their lovely shriveled bodies promising rich flavors and melting tenderness.

Edible silk

We always ate them slightly chilled, for eggplants are at their absolute best in late summer and fall, when the heat is raging and the summer vegetables are in their final stages of glory. Really, eggplants are meant to be eaten now. 

I used to devour cold ratatouille all the time when I lived by myself in Taipei, usually as a big scoop straight out of the icebox. Cooling, delicious, and nutritious, it made me a happy camper of the first degree.

But Jiangsu just might have the jump on Provence here, for these splendid denizens of the Yangtze River area are the real deal. Even if you are not crazy about eggplant, something like this just might change your mind.

Oil braised eggplants

Yóumèn qiézi 油燜茄子

Zhejiang and Jiangsu

Serves 4 to 6

4 Chinese eggplants (about 20 ounces / 800 g), left whole with the tops still attached

½ cup boiling water

3 tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallots or onions

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

A long, elegant Chinese eggplant

1. Rinse the eggplants and cut them in half or thirds crosswise, so that you have fat batons or more or less the same size. Place them in a wok with the boiling water, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and cook them covered for around 10 minutes, or until most of the water has boiled off. Toss them around gently so that all sides are cooked.

2. Remove the cover and add the soy sauce, sugar, and shallots or onions. Shake the wok to evenly distribute the seasonings, cover, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Adjust the heat to maintain a good bubbling, but you want to give the eggplants time to cook down, release all of their moisture, and yet not burn, so adjust the heat as needed. Shake the pan occasionally, but don’t use a spatula, as the eggplants are going to turn very soft.

Utterly delicious

3. Check the wok every 5 minutes. This step will take longer than you expect because although you only added 3 tablespoons soy sauce, the salt will cause the eggplants to release their juices, and so the liquid will look pretty constant while this happens. When the soy sauce has finally cooked down to a sticky slick of only a tablespoon or two – around 45 minutes – the eggplants will have shriveled and look like your fingers when you’ve stayed in the bathtub too long. They will be very, very fragile at this point. So, drizzle the sesame oil over them, shake the wok to distribute the oil, cook the eggplants uncovered for a minute or two to further reduce the sauce, and then use a spatula or chopsticks to nudge the eggplants out onto a serving plate. (If you refrigerate them, do your best not to squish them down, as eggplants this done are rarely photogenic as it is, and pressure = mush. Still tasty, but...) They can be served hot or chilled and served cold the next day.

Chinese ratatouille without the mouse

You know you have a great culinary idea when it pops up all on its own on both sides of the world. Such is the case with this dish, which of course is not called ratatouille in Chinese, but rather “braised eggplant.” That is one very prosaic name for one very delicious way with heat-loving vegetables.

This dish features the produce that is beloved throughout China's northwest region: eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes. And, like ratatouille, this has garlic to brighten the flavors. But, instead of olive oil and marjoram, the Shanxi version features sesame oil and Sichuan peppercorns.

Also unlike the French take on this dish, the eggplants are deep fried to caramelize them and give them a rich flavor. This may appear to be not only too much of an effort, but also a huge waste of oil. 

Eggplants, peppers & tomatoes

But the eggplants when prepared this way turn creamy inside as the hot fat sears the cut edges, and they won’t mush up as the ratatouille cooks, either. 

Instead, because the final dish is cooked so quickly once the eggplant is fried to a deep brown, each vegetable retains its individuality. Although eggplant soaks up oil when given the slightest chance, it will pool into the edges of the dish once it is completed, so you can pour it off, if you like.

I have always loved ratatouille and even lived off of it for months when I lived by myself in Taipei; it was sort of a comforting taste of the West after a stressful day of working and studying. I would use leftovers in omelets, in sandwiches, in salads… I never seemed to tire of it. And now with this Shanxi version, I have fallen in love all over again.

Chinese ratatouille 
Huìshāo qiézi 燴燒茄子

Shanxi
Serves 4 to 6

2 pounds Chinese or Japanese eggplant

Oil for frying

8 ounces sweet or mild peppers (see Tips)

5 to 6 ounces ripe tomatoes (see Tips)

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

½ teaspoon ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns

1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

2 teaspoons regular soy sauce

½ cup chopped cilantro

Roll-cut eggplant

1. Rinse the eggplant and pat very dry (see Tips). If the eggplants are more than an inch thick, cut off the caps and slice the eggplant down the middle before cutting them into fat triangles about an inch wide. Heat at least 4 inches of oil in a wok over high, and when a chopstick inserted into the oil is immediately covered with bubbles, carefully slide about a quarter of the eggplant into the hot oil (see Tips). Stir the eggplant occasionally, and when it is a dark brown all over, use a Chinese spider or slotted spoon to remove it to a medium work bowl. Repeat with the rest of the eggplant until all of it has been fried.

2. While the eggplant is frying, prep the rest of the ingredients: Rinse the peppers, pat them dry, remove the caps, and shake out all of the seeds. Cut the peppers into pieces about the same size as the eggplant. Cut the tomatoes into the same size, too.

3. When all of the eggplant has been fried, pour the oil out of the wok into a heatproof container. Add the sesame oil to the wok and sprinkle on the ground Sichuan peppercorns and garlic. Stir-fry these on high for a few seconds to release their fragrance, and then add all of the eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes. Stir-fry these quickly until the tomatoes and peppers start to wild, and then add the soy sauce. Toss these together, and then taste and adjust the seasoning. Toss in the cilantro and serve.

 

Shanxi ratatouille

Tips

Use whatever kind of mild peppers you like and which are looking good. Anaheims are great here, as are sweet banana peppers.

Try to use the ripest, tastiest tomatoes in the market. If it is winter or spring, cherry tomatoes will be a good bet, and if even those look and taste iffy, spring for a can of whole tomatoes; San Marzano canned tomatoes are very good.

Make sure that your eggplants are wiped very dry, as even a drop of water will explode in the hot oil.

Use more garlic and ground Sichuan peppercorn if you want to emphasize these flavors.

The best zhajiang noodles in the world. Period.

Popular throughout most of northeast China, zhajiang noodles are almost like pasta Bolognese: this is basically a rich meat sauce balanced on top of chewy strands of dough. But there the comparison pretty much ends.

Zhajiang mian means “deep-fried sauce noodles,” which has always confused me. When I have given Chinese cooks the third degree about this, the answer is always that the sauce is “deep fried” before it is mixed with the meat. And I've invariably retorted, “But the sauce is ‘pan fried’ [jian], so this should be jianjiang mian, right?” and the reply I get is always a shake of the head and a frown, because the name simply doesn't make any sense. (It’s sort of like when Chinese people ask me to break down the meaning of hot dogs [regou, literally “hot dogs” – nothing lost in translation there], and I have to tell them that we really and truly don’t dine on puppies in the States, despite all misleading names to the contrary.)

It wasn't until very recently that I figured out the solution. You see, most folks think of this as from Beijing, and zhajiang noodles is believed by most to be the name this dish was originally christened with. But actually, I discovered, it comes from Manchuria, where it is known by the name zajiang mian 雜醬麵, or “mixed sauce noodles.” Zha and za sound very much alike, and perhaps there was some confusion upstream. Who knows what happened... all I know is that I now can sleep well at night.

Pork plus the secret ingredient

We've enjoyed endless variations on this dish, but I have to say that the recipe below is the best I have ever tasted. But as with great simple foods elsewhere, perfection demands a couple of very important requirements:

First, the pasta should be handmade and fresh. No dried noodles here, please. In fact, you should use pulled noodles, not rolled ones, because the stretching of the dough creates little tears along the strands that grab onto the sauce and then convey it to your eagerly awaiting mouth. 

All of that pulling and bouncing that goes on in creating lamian means that the gluten has been excited into a state of near hysteria (or as close to hysteria that pasta can get), which makes it astoundingly chewy and vibrant. And another thing: make the pasta flat and wide, if you can, because you really want the noodles to make a boisterous presence against all of that powerfully seasoned sauce. (More on pulled noodles and how to make them in the very near future...)

Second, don’t drown the noodles with sauce. You want a good balance of sauce to pasta so that your tongue is initially hit with the salty/sweet/meaty taste of the zhajiang, and then this is complemented by the subtly sweet noodles that act sort of like palate cleansers. The cucumber garnish does much of the same thing, but it is raw and slightly tannic, which provides even more contrast. (The brilliant emerald color satisfies the eyes, too.) Some people like to sprinkle green onions on top, and I would not be opposed to a few shards per bite, but don’t overdo it.

Frying the sweet wheat paste

Third, add the secret ingredient of this recipe, eggplant, as this ends up as creamy bits of heaven that make the meat even meatier. 

The idea for this addition came from the wonderful Chinese writer Liang Shih-chiu, who recalled in an essay called “Noodles” (Miantiao) that “our family once was taught by a lofty personage to add cubed eggplant when the sauce was almost done… and the secret lay in doing one’s best to make the sauce on the noodles not too salty.”

He was right on the money.

Zhajiang or zajiang, Beijing or Manchuria, this is soul-satisfying stuff.

Zhajiang noodles  
Zhájiàng miàn 炸醬麵 
Manchuria, Beijing

Serves 2 to 3 as a lunch or snack

Noodles and eggplant:

1 pound fresh, wide noodles, preferably hand-pulled

8 cups boiling filtered water

2 small eggplants

¼ cup peanut or vegetable oil

Sauce:

1 tablespoon peanut or vegetable oil

8 ounces good quality ground pork

Gravelly meat and aromatics

½ medium onion peeled and cut into ½-inch dice

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 tablespoons plain rice wine (mijiu)

6 to 8 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

3 tablespoons sweet wheat paste (see Tips)

1 tablespoon regular soy sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

¼ cup hot filtered water

Garnish:

1 Japanese, Persian, or pickling cucumber, trimmed and julienned

1 green onion, trimmed and julienned, optional

1. Prepare your own noodles or use storebought fresh ones, preferably something wide and chewy like paparadelle. Shake the noodles out onto a tea towel and loosen the strands. Cover them with a clean tea towel to keep them from drying out. Have the unsalted water in a pot on the stove with the lid on to keep it hot.

2. Clean and trim the eggplants and then cut them into ½-inch dice (about 1 cup) without peeling. Heat the oil in a wok on medium-high and fry the eggplants until they are browned all over. Remove them to a dish.

3. To prepare the sauce, heat the oil in a wok over medium-high and add the ginger, pork, onion, and garlic. Lower the heat to medium and cook them – stirring occasionally – until the onions are translucent. Raise the heat to medium-high again and fry the mixture until it has some browned edges.

Korean sweet wheat paste

4. Pour the rice wine in and stir it around quickly to stop the caramelization. Scoop the mixture up one side of the wok. Raise the heat to high; pour in the sesame oil into the bottom of the wok and add the sweet wheat paste. Stir the paste around in the oil to break it up into a smooth layer and to fry out any raw flavors. Add the soy sauce and sugar. Mix the meat mixture into the sauce and toss these around on the heat. Add the hot water and stir the sauce around to incorporate the water. Lower the heat to a simmer and let the sauce gently cook for 10 to 15 minutes; add the eggplant, taste and adjust the seasoning, and cook the sauce for another 3 minutes.

5. Just before serving, cook the noodles until done but still nice and chewy. Use a Chinese spider or slotted spoon to remove them to noodle bowls, but don’t pour out the noodle water. Ladle the sauce on top of each mound of noodles and garnish with the cucumbers and the optional green onions. Serve a soup bowl of the hot noodle water on the side to each person. Your diners should toss the noodles with the sauce and garnish so that there is a nice balance of fresh, sweet, salty, chewy, and soft in each bite.

Tips

Look, Ma, no beans!

Zhajiang is traditionally made out of steamed breads (plain mantou) that have been allowed to mold. These are then mixed with seasonings and the resulting mush ferments into a thick, rich sauce of the deepest, darkest brown.

The problem is that zhajiang is often translated as “black bean sauce” (see the photo to the right) or “sweet bean sauce” or something on that order, but no beans were injured during the making of this sauce. It should be called “sweet wheat paste,” as it is gently sweet and nicely savory. Check the ingredient list as here: it should mainly be wheat, water, caramel, and salt. If any beans or bean powder or soy sauce are mentioned, it should be as an afterthought.

The best brands are made in Korea, for my money. Excellent quality, balanced flavor, good texture… what’s not to love? 

Cold spicy & numbing eggplant

If ever there was a non-Muslim dish that reminded me of the Middle East, it would be Sichuan's way with cold eggplant. Just as with baba ghanoush and other Levantine appetizers, these silken strands of beige vegetable matter are garnished with lots of oil and spices and inspiration, turning them into aromatic pillows that seem to float above the plate.

Dishes like these are meant to be savored as a prelude to dinner, as a suggestion of the cook's prowess, and as a hint of many good things to come. Eggplant is not beloved by too many people, and that is all right with me, because that means that there are just that much more of those amethysts beauties left for me.

Rabidly aromatic sauce

But I admit it, I too didn't care too much for eggplant when I was a kid. We almost never ate it except at Italian restaurants, and even then it served mainly as a transportation system for heavy breading, sour red sauces, and heavy layers of cheese. I could never taste the moist wafers underneath that heavy assault, but then again, I couldn't taste the chicken or the veal that was fixed that way, either.

Then Julia Child and ratatouille entered my life, and eggplant became a thing of beauty. And years later I went to Taiwan and realized that even more wondrous things could be done with this strange vegetable.

My favorite, though, has always been this simple dish. Unlike baba ghanoush, though, the eggplants here don't swim in oil. The secret lies in steaming them first, shredding them by hand, and only then lavishing a generous amount of scented oils and vibrant flavors on top. Eggplant by its very nature is bland and reticent, so it acts as the perfect canvas, the ultimate foil for the most explosive combinations.

Cold spicy & numbing eggplant 
Liángbàn qiézĭ 涼拌茄子

Sichuan
Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer 

Fry the crunchy bits first

2 pounds Chinese eggplant (see Tips)

2 tablespoons Chili Pepper Oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon finely minced fresh ginger

1 tablespoon hot bean sauce (la doubanjiang)

1 teaspoon ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns

1 tablespoon regular soy sauce

1 tablespoon rice or apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

1 green onion, trimmed

1. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the skins of the eggplants. Trim off the caps and any bruises. Cut the eggplants crosswise into approximately 4-inch lengths, and if the eggplants are more than an inch wide, cut these in half lengthwise. 

A welcome beginning to dinner

2. Place the peeled eggplants in a steamer and steam over high heat until very tender; if you insert a chopstick into the thickest part, it should offer no more resistance than pudding. Remove the eggplants from the steamer, drain off any water and juices in a colander, and let them cool off until they can be easily handled. Tear the eggplants into thin strips along their natural grain and place them in a medium work bowl.

3. Heat the chili oil in a wok over medium-high until it shimmers, and then add the garlic, ginger, and spicy bean sauce. Stir these aromatics around for about 10 seconds to release their fragrance, and then add the ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and sesame oil. Quickly cook these only to remove the rawness of the sauces and dissolve the sugar, taste and adjust seasoning, and them pour these over the shredded eggplant. Finely slice the green onion and add it to the eggplant. Toss well, chill, and serve.

Tips

Chinese eggplants are a medium purple color and are longer than other varieties – some reaching over a food long – while Japanese ones are smaller and darker purple; Japanese eggplants can be used interchangeably with the Chinese ones in almost any recipe. Western globe eggplants, though, usually have more water and seeds, and so might be a bit texturally different in the final dish.

Long Chinese eggplant

Peeling the eggplant is what gives this dish its remarkable silkiness.

This dish can be made a couple of days ahead of time, and the flavors only improve. If you do make this ahead of time, add the green onions just before serving so that they retain their color and texture. The ginger and garlic, though, will offer tiny bits of crunch no matter when they get tossed in, and these contrast wonderfully with the glossy eggplant.

Make this dish as chili-laden and numbing as you wish. As given here, the dish is comfortably spicy.

Caramelized eggplant

I never enjoyed eggplant much as a kid and probably didn't even bother ordering it -- much less eating it -- until I lived in Taipei. There, this rather insipid vegetable suddenly took on a new character. It was like a mousy little girl turning into a movie star. 

One of the things that turned the aubergine around for me was simply its new and (for me, at least) improved shape. No longer the enormous grease sponges that used to haunt my plate, these Asian eggplants were long and slender and cooked in a way that turned them silky and sensuous. It was a revelation.

There is another edge to eggplant, though, that is rarely tapped: its natural tendency toward caramelization. This is one of those little secrets that certain Chinese chefs keep locked under their toques, but I am here to tell you all about it.

Small Asian eggplants

I figured this out by wondering how certain Chinese restaurants could whip out an eggplant dish before I barely  had poured myself a cup of scalding tea. Prodding at the dish with inquisitive chopsticks, I came to the realization that the eggplant had been cooked ahead of time and only awaited a quick dive into whatever sauce was required before being plated up. Good, one problem solved.

It turns out that there were two ways this was accomplished: one was the more common method of steaming of eggplant batons, which allowed them to retain their white flesh and beautiful purple skins. A handful of other chefs did something else, though, that lent a richer note to their flavor, although the veggies were no longer quite so pretty cooked this way. As far as I was concerned, though, eating is mainly about the flavor, so I started obsessing over them until I figured out the secret.

My discovery: these little guys had been deep fried. 

Roll cut for more surface area

No batter was used; instead, these were fried all by themselves until browned all over. The edges in particular have a tendency to turn into sticky ridges when they encounter hot fat and the juices actually caramelize. I don't know about you, but I never thought of an eggplant as being sweet before this, but they definitely do have enough sugar in them to turn a luscious walnut hue.

Frying them in hot oil also quickly hardens up the cut edges and skin so that the eggplant forms a seal that keeps most of the oil out and the juices in. The pieces shrink impressively as they cook, but what is left is actually quite sweet and succulent, a word I would normally never associate with eggplant. Then, they are tossed in a vibrant sauce, like the red-cooked (or hongshao) flavors used here.

The secret to perfectly fried eggplant is therefore no more than this: small amounts are quickly cooked in a generous amount of hot oil. A handful of the veggies fries up rapidly this way, in less than five minutes, and browns beautifully, while too many pieces cool down the oil, increase the steam, and turn the eggplant into a fine mess of mush. 

What I do is fry the eggplant in small batches while I'm prepping other dishes. All I need to do is flip them around now and again so that they brown evenly, scoop them out, and then toss in more. It goes quickly and can be done way ahead of time.

Just like in a restaurant.

Red cooked eggplant

Caramelized eggplant Shanghai style 
Hongshao qiezi  紅燒茄子 
Shanghai
Serves 4 to 6 as part of a multicourse meal, or 2 to 3 as a main dish

1½ pounds Asian (long) eggplant

1 to 2 cups peanut or vegetable oil (used is okay here as long as it smells good)

8 thin slices fresh ginger, peeled

1 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped, optional (see Tips)

3 green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 teaspoon rock sugar, or to taste
Thinly chopped green onion or cilantro for garnish, optional

1. Rinse and pat dry the eggplants (see Tips). Remove the caps and trim off any bruises. Roll cut (see Tips) the eggplants into 1-inch chunks. Heat the oil over high in a wok (you want about a 2-inch depth of oil) until a wooden chopstick inserted in the oil is immediately covered with bubbles. 

2. Carefully add about a quarter of the eggplant to the hot oil and stir it around. Let it fry to a nice brown, stirring the eggplant around occasionally, and then remove the veggies with a slotted spoon to a work bowl. Heat the oil up again (see Tips) and fry another quarter of the eggplant. Repeat until done. Drain off any extra oil from the work bowl. (The eggplant can be prepared ahead of time up to this point.)

3. Pour off all of the oil in the wok, leaving just a thin slick inside (see Tips). Heat the wok over high again and then add the ginger, optional garlic, and green onions. Stir-fry them until their edges start to brown, and then toss in the rice wine. Let it bubble for a second, and then add the cooked eggplant, soy sauce, and sugar (see Tips).

4. Quickly bring the wok to a boil again, tossing the eggplant so that each piece is coated with the sauce; taste and adjust seasoning. When most of the sauce has been absorbed (in just a minute or two), plate, garnish if you like, and serve.

Tips

Deep fry the eggplant first

The garlic is optional here, so feel free to use as much or little as you like. Consider the other foods you will be serving, too; if something else will have a good helping of garlic, don't use any garlic here at all so that you can counterbalance the flavors of that dish.

You can use any type of Asian eggplant you like. Be sure and wipe them dry, as water will explode in the hot oil. For the same reason, any time you deep fry foods, wipe your hands dry before approaching the stove, as droplets can backfire onto your arms or even your face.

To roll cut, slice any round, thin vegetable (like a carrot) while rolling it on the chopping block with the palm of the other hand. This gives irregular pieces with maximum surface area. They should all end up being about the same size, so cut any bigger pieces as needed.

Roll-cut eggplant

When deep frying, be sure that the oil is hot before adding more ingredients to the wok. As soon as you remove fried foods, give the oil a little time to return to its original temperature and test the oil again with your chopsticks. This will keep the oil hot enough to immediately fry the foods; otherwise, the foods will soak up the oil rather than form a fried exterior.

Since the eggplant already has some oil in it from the deep frying, don't add any more to the wok when you make the sauce. The thin layer remaining in the wok will be sufficient to quickly stir-fry the aromatics. Some of the oil will leak out from the eggplant into the sauce as the sauce is made, and this will be just the right amount in the finished dish.

Use a small amount of sugar for this recipe and taste it before adding more; I like just a tiny bit to smooth the edge of the sauce here. Also, rock sugar gives a nicer sheen and has none of the sour aftertaste of regular white sugar, so try it if you have it on hand.