Effortnesslessly: Szechuan Eggplant

It is not your regular Chinese food. Flavors of this Szechuan Eggplant are so complex like nothing else you picked up at your local Chinese carry-out spot around the corner. It's totally worth the trip to Asian market to find some special ingredients you will need to cook this unique dish.

Blog's Category: International, Vegetarian

Intro

Sweet-&-sour chicken, shrimp lo mien, general tso...Aren't you tired of all the same choices at all Chinese food places you ever visited, despite you are a big fan of Chinese food? If yes, it's about time to cook something interesting, something that you are never going to be served with at your local Asian restaurants. I'm suggesting Szechuan Eggplant.

The recipe calls for a couple of ingredients you probably are not going to find on your shelf, but the recipe worth a trip to Asian market if you are lucky to have one around.

Most likely those ingredients would be broad bean paste and szechuan pepper. Below, in a picture section, you will find pictures and buying tips for this ingredients and some more detailed visual information regarding this dish.

What is it?

Szechuan Eggplant is pretty easy to cook. Whole process consist of 4 short steps -
1) ingredient preparation such as washing, slicing, chopping
2) searing of eggplant
3) sauce preparation
4) quick sauteing eggplant in a sauce

Taste Description

As I said before, flavors are very complex, you may find your taste buds experiencing taste they never experienced before. Some additional layers of taste could be described as sweet-and-savory, tender-pinchy, weirdly-numbing, gently-spicy. Did I intrigue you enough to start cooking?

How to Serve/Store

It's best to serve it slightly warm or at room temperature. It is a great side dish to a grilled meat, or, if you are vegetarian as me, you will like it served on a top of plain warm rice. My genes are also forced me to consume it with a nice piece of fresh country bread with a side of thinly sliced parmesan. If you think it's weird combo - try it yourself :)
Szechuan Eggplant will keep in a fridge for about 4-5 days.

Szechuan Eggplant

3 Japanese eggplants

bunch (about 5-6) green onion

5 garlic cloves, minced or grated

1 " fresh ginger, grated

3 tbs soy sauce

pinch of red pepper flakes

3-5 tbs sesame oil

2 tbs sugar

1 tbs broad bean paste

1 tsp black bean paste (optional)

1 tsp dry szechuan pepper

1 tbs corn starch, mixed with 1/2 cup of tap water

1 cup of water

- Cut each eggplant across into 3 pieces, then slice each piece along into 4 thick sticks.
- Chop green onion into large 2" pieces.
- Toast szechuan pepper on a medium heat, in a skillet, without oil, shaking, until it starts to give away light aroma. It will take a minute or two. Take off heat, cool down and smash into coarse powder in a mortar. Or place on a chopping board, cover with a plastic wrap and crush with a pin. Do not skip this step, because szechuan pepper is not activated until it's crushed and/or smashed..

- On a frying pan, on a medium heat, add sesame oil and cook eggplant pieces, trying to get all sides of each piece browned up. Transfer eggplant to a plate.

- On a same skillet, add a little more sesame oil, and start stir fry white part of green onion for a couple of minutes. Then add green parts of onion, garlic, ginger, szechuan pepper, broad bean paste and stir fry on a medium low for 2 more minutes.
- Add one cup of water, soy sauce, sugar, black bean paste, red pepper flakes (if using). Stir to combine.

- Add eggplants and cook on a medium low shaking, or gently stirring, trying not to smash eggplants too much, for about 3 minutes or until eggplants are cooked through. Then add corn starch mixed with water and cook for 2 more minutes until sauce is not milky anymore from starch mix. Taste, add sugar or salt if needed. Done!

- Serve and enjoy!

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IN PICTURES

Szechuan pepper is such an interesting ingredient. It's tiny and looks like a split-up red peppercorn. If you start to chew on it, you won't feel usual pepper heat, but rather strange, tingling, numbing feel to your tongue and lips. You can find this pepper in any asian grocery store in a small see-through plastic bags (I like to keep my spices at home in a small plastic containers, that's why you see it on my picture like this).

Always cool spice down before smashing them. After toasting, while cooling down spices, nuts become harder and crunchier, which makes them easier to crack.

This is broad bean paste. You will see a lot of different soy bean pastes in Chinese store, look for a paste in a small jar which explicitly tells "broad" bean paste/sauce. Below is a picture of this jar with info in English.

To make life easier, I threw all eggplant pieces on a preheated, oiled pan and let it fry without disturbing for 2-3 minutes, then shaked pan to flip all together and then "helped" those stubborn pieces which didn't obey to turn over using fork.

This broad bean paste looks so beautiful. Later, eating it, I especially enjoyed those few beans from a sauce. I wish it would be more of them. This gives me idea to add some soy beans to this dish next time.