There is nothing fancy about this dish but I eat it a lot because it checks off all the boxes: Protein? Check. Fiber/healthy-ish carb? Check. Flavor? Check.
Ingredients:
- 1 eggplant cubed
- 1/4 of an onion (chopped)
- 3 cloves of minced garlic
- 1 stalk of chopped green onions
- 3 slices of minced ginger
- 1 tablespoon of fermented black beans (optional)
- 2 oz of ground pork (optional)
- Salt to taste
- 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1 tablespoon of canola oil
Tips:
- I don’t actually cube my eggplant, I do it 滚刀块, which basically roughly translates to “cutting diagonally into chunks.” This exposes the most surface area of the inside of the eggplant. (I think.)
How to serve:
- You can serve it with rice but I like to eat it on its own.
Directions:
- Heat up a non-stick pan and place the ground pork into the pan.
- Flatten the ground pork and try to separate it into little pieces.
- Throw a pinch of salt and very little soy sauce into the ground pork once it starts to brown.
- Place the chopped onions into the pan with the meat and stir-fry until fragrant.
- Set the meat and onions aside.
- In the same pan, heat up the canola oil.
- Place the eggplant into the plan and stir-fry until you start to see it browning a little bit.
- Put in half of the allotted water and cap the eggplant to allow it to cook and soften.
- Open the cap and throw in the rest of the water, green onions (reserve a few pieces of the very green ones for garnish later), ginger, and garlic and then immediately cap it again. (Now would also be a good time to add in the fermented black beans.)
- Wait about 1-3 minutes.
- Open the cap and toss the eggplant around; at this point, the eggplant should be tender.
- Add in salt the soy sauce and toss for another 1 minutes.
- Put the dish into a bowl and garnish with the green green onions.
- Ready to serve.
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