Chinese eggplants with minced pork and spicy garlic sauce is a humble and popular dish in Chinese kitchen.A small amount of minced pork can greatly improve the taste of eggplants, which can rich the layers of a humble eggplant stir-fry. For vegan readers, you can simply skip minced pork or try this eggplants with garlic sauce.
Eggplants are quite yummy when well cooked. The soft texture can greatly absorb the spicy garlic sauce and endow the dish great flavor. The most common way of cooking eggplants in China includes Chinese spicy eggplant salad, eggplants with green beans, Chinese Yu Xiang eggplants and DiSanxian (three treasure of the earth)
Remove the ends of Asian eggplants and then cut into small cubes (for the best flavor, try to cut each cubes with some skin). Transfer them into a large pot filled with water, add pinch of salt and soak for 10 minutes. Add a weight if necessary to make sure the eggplants is well soaked.
Set aside to drain completely.
Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in wok and fry the eggplants for 6-9 minutes until the eggplants become soft and withered. Transfer eggplants out and leave the oil in.
Add marinated pork in to stir-fry until the color changes into white. Transfer out.
Re-heat around 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in wok and fry garlic, ginger, spring oil and doubanjiang until aroma. Return the eggplants along with fried minced pork, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil. Mix well.
- 2 long Asian eggplants
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup minced pork
- 1 tsp. minced ginger
- 1/2 tbsp. Chinese cooking wine
- 3 tbsp. cooking oil ,divided
- 2 garlic cloves ,sliced
- 1 thumb ginger ,sliced
- 2 green onions ,white half and green half divided
- 1/2 tbsp. doubanjiang ,skip this if you prefer a mild taste or double for a hotter version
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1/8 tsp. sugar
- 1/2 tsp. sesame oil
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Remove the ends of Asian eggplants and then cut into small cubes (for the best flavor, try to cut each cubes with some skin). Transfer them into a large pot filled with water, add pinch of salt and soak for 10 minutes. Add a weight if necessary to make sure the eggplants is well soaked. Set aside to drain completely.
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Marinate minced pork with minced ginger, a small pinch of salt and Chinese cooking wine. Set aside.
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Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in wok and fry the eggplants for 6-9 minutes until the eggplants become soft and withered. Transfer eggplants out and leave the oil in.
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Add marinated pork in to stir-fry until the color changes into white. Transfer out.
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Re-heat around 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in wok and fry green onion white parts, garlic, ginger, and doubanjiang until aroma. Return the eggplants along with fried minced pork, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil. Mix well.
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Garnish chopped green onion (green parts) and serve with steamed rice.
If you want the eggplants to absorb less oil, you can spread some cornstarch to coat the eggplants before cooking.
I love this dish. So tasty! I will add the extra red chili to bring more spicy kick!
Thanks Holly!!
This is a nice dish, but I agree not very spicy. I added double the chili sauce, extra soy sauce, and some oyster sauce with a slurry of cornstarch to make a silky sauce
Thanks!
I love eggplant! This recipe will be a keeper for me and my family. I will cook it tonight. I will let you know how it turns out. Thanks
Great recipe! I’m looking forward to trying it.
the recipe says to divide the white and green parts of the scallion but then never tells what to do with the white and green parts.
Hi Jack,
White parts should be stir fried with garlic and ginger while green parts are for garnishing.
Hi Elaine,
I love your site! And I loovve this dish – reminds me of my mom. Can you tell me the purpose of soaking the eggplant before cooking?
Hi Erin,
This step can help to reduce the oil absorbed by the eggplants. If you do not want to brother, you can skip this step.
During my stay in Shanghai, I loved this Sichuan style eggplant stir fr.!! i am so happy to find the recipe here.
Kudos to your blog
That is the spicy sauce Daubanjiang. Can you post picture of the bottle/jar
Thanks
Cooked this disth — my family loved it
Thanks Cathe! Glad that you like it.
Hi,
Love your site and recipes.
I’m learning to cook more asian dishes and some of the recipes I have found on your site worked out really good so I push on to try more.
One question for this dish……insted of using mince pork could I use ground beef insted? Or will the beef flavor not be as neutral as pork?
Typically I have beef on hand and always have ch.eggplants cause I love-em.
Mince beef works fine too. We interchange pork with beef in lots of Chinese dishes.
Love this recipe! Anything with eggplant is my favorite. My husband who is from china has been trying to get me to cook Chinese food, luckily your recipes are winners with him. Thank you! I usually use ground turkey and omit the sugar to make it healthier.
Hi, Naomi
Thank you for your kind comments. I’m very happy when I heard my recipes could make some help for you. My family also love eggplant, it’s so nice and healthy.
This recipe is amazing!!! I’m living in England now and ordering this dish from Chinese restaurants is really expensive. So yesterday I was craving this dish like crazy and I found this recipe! The next day I went to get almost all of the ingredients needed from Tesco except Sesame Oil and Chinese cooking wine. This dish tasted soooooo good, even without sesame oil and the wine!! I added a tablespoon of Dobanjiang 豆瓣酱 and I think Dobanjiang is super important for this dish. If you can’t eat spicy food, maybe you can just add 1 teaspoon of it. I must try to cook this dish again with sesame oil and cooking wine the next time.
Nice to hear the feedback. Liew. I am so happy that you love it.
That was cheap, easy and delicious. Thanks for the recipes! 🙂
Thanks Rohan, wish you have a good cooking time!
Thanks for the recipe! Is it possible to leave out the Chinese cooking wine and also use non Chinese eggplants?
yes, Nat. It is ok to skip Chinese cooking wine.
I cooked this for my family last night and they loved it. However, my eggplant turned brown; not the lovely purple like yours. HOW DId you keep the purple color?
Hi Nk,
You will need more oil. The purple skin should be evenly coated with oil to avoid meeting the air and oxidizing reaction.
This recipe is fantastic, I love it. I ate this dish many times while I was in China and have used your recipe twice. I really enjoy it, thank you!
Thanks Melissa. I am so happy to hear the lovely comment.
this sounds super,what would be the recipe for serving 12?
It should be great for 2 people.
Great recipe! Going to try it tonight! I prefer less oil recipes, at most time eggplants require a lot of oil! It seems like your dish doesn’t need so much oil which is great!
You can cook eggplants with less oil, there is no problem. The only thing needed is longer cooking time. Happy cooking!
Thx Elaine for your reply! I made Steamed Eggplants recently as well, it was delicious!
I can not buy dobanjiang and chinese cooking wine in Norway, anything I can use instead??
You can skip Chinese cooking wine and add some fresh chili peppers to bring this dish a light spicy taste.
Thank you for this! Just made it now 🙂 the only I felt was missing in my dish was pepper on the beef but hey to each is own.. Also I think I put a bit too much oil. Other wise great guide for this dish!
Hi Darren,
I agree it is a oily dish. Eggplants usually need more oil than other vegetable. Oil can help to bring the eggplant a meat like soft texture. I will try to develop methods of reducing the oil absorbed during the cooking process. Thanks for your suggestion.
I substituted ground beef for the pork and cubed ambercup squash for the eggplant. I also added 1tsp of sichuan peppercorns along with the soy and oil at the end. It was an amazing dish. Your blog is wonderful.
Thanks Vigo for your lovely information. I usually do not use Sichuan peppercorn in eggplants but it sounds a lovely idea. Will try next time.
Thanks very very much for all your recipes this site is truly amazing!
Quick question , could you add Chinkiang vinegar to this recipe? I have seen other recipes for Fish Fragrant Egg Plant that contain Chinkiang vinegar?
Thanks in advance and thanks for the endless inspiration 🙂
Sure, you can add some vinegar to bring a tiny sour taste. But fish fragrant is another taste with different sauce. Do not use so much vinegar in common braised eggplants, since we do not contain enough sugar.
This looks like the best recipe I’ve seen so far. But it should not be under “eggs and dairy!” Eggplant is a fruit, but used like a vegetable here.
Nice Catch, John.
Another 5 star recipe Elaine! I don’t know what I would do without your recipes and inspiration. You have taken my Chinese cooking to a new and higher level.
Thank you!
It is bringing back my craving in real chinese foods that you cant ever find here in Middle East
Thank you for sharing Ms.Elaine
You are most welcome! Thanks Lenie for such a wonderful comment.
Hi Elaine,
I tried this out and liked it very much. Thank you for this recipe. I have two questions though.
How do you mange to keep the color on the eggplants? The only way I know of is adding some kind of acid (eg. vinegar or lemon juice). But I didn’t see that in the recipe. So the skin of the eggplants turned somewhat brown- grayish during frying. It didn’t affect the taste, but I would like to know how to make it look so pretty like on your photos.
My second question is regarding the minced pork. I can buy something similar in the supermarket, but that’s mostly ground using a meat grinder. However looking at your pictures I guess that’s not the same you are using. So do you mince it yourself using a knife? If so, what cut of pork do you usually use for this, belly or shoulder or something else?
Andreas,
To keep the purple color, both white vinegar (or lemon juice) and oil can help. Cook less eggplants with more oil can keep the purple color too. Or you can add some white vinegar or lemon juice int he soaking process.
For the second question, I love to use hand chopped pork. I love to use shoulder (pork butt). Any cuts with some fat can work fine for all purpose minced pork.
Thank you for your reply Elaine!
By the way the initial soaking of the eggplants is a really great trick I learned from this. I always hated using so much oil for frying eggplants. I’ll do this for other recipes from now on, too. And the next time I’ll add some vinegar and see how that works out.
WHERE in the ingredients does it call for GARLIC?
Hi,
Why do you soak the eggplants ?
Thanks ^^
It help to fasten the cooking process.
Hi Adrien,
as you probably know raw eggplants are very much like a sponge. So they’ll soak up liquid very fast. So if you put them in a wok with oil it’ll be dry very fast. Soaking them beforehand spares you of adding a gallon of oil and keeps the eggplants nice and fresh instead of dripping with fat.
Can you marinate the eggplant in the pork marinade, if you’re not using pork? Or just add them while cooking the eggplant? Thanks!
I still recommend cook eggplants and protein separately, as they need different cooking time and fire. You can replace pork with chicken or other protein and then follow the instructions.