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Thursday, January 27, 2011

Steamed Eggplant with Garlic Vinaigrette 蒜泥茄子

A western recipe? Nope. This is a Chinese dish.

I’ve eaten this before at a local lunch spot, serving mixed rice (chap fan or 经济饭), and this is one of my fav dishes from them. And when I saw the recipe here in MeishiChina , gosh, I knew I just got to try this.

There is a difference though with both recipes. The one I had was lightly deep fried to cook it through, but this is steamed, but the garlic thingy is the same. But I made my own modifications to it.

Even my "sour food hater" hubby found this to be nice and appetizing, maybe due to his love for garlic, hahahaha.

 

Steamed Eggplant with Garlic Vinaigrette 蒜泥茄子
Loosely adapted from: Meishi China
250gm aubergine/eggplant/brinjal
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 Tbsp lime juice (original recipe was vinegar)
1 Tbsp sugar (use ¾ first, if not sweet enough then put in the other ¼)
½ tsp salt
Some lime zest
2 bird’s eye chillies, thinly sliced (I used one red and one green)

1. Peel and cut eggplant into strips (bear in mind they shrink about 40% when cooked mixed with the vinaigrette)
2. Steam on high heat for 5 minutes, until cooked and tender, but not mushy. Leave t cool, if you like to eat it cold, you may chill it. Pour away juices if there is.
3. Grate garlic into a heatproof bowl (just don’t use plastic).
4. Heat oil until smoking and pour onto garlic. Stir.
5. Put in lime juice, salt, sugar, lime zest and half of the chillies into the garlic mixture.
6. Stir until salt and sugar dissolves. Taste, adjust accordingly. It has to be lightly sour, but well balanced with the sugar, slightly oversalted.
7. Pour vinaigrette over cooled eggplants and toss.
8. Put tossed eggplants onto serving plate and top with balance of sliced chillies for garnish.

10 comments:

  1. i know this taste seriously good but somehow i'm super afraid to eat this duno why but i dun touch eggplant of all kinds lol!

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  2. Jess,
    Eggplants are good for you, but it's really an acquired taste. Either you love it or hate it, rarely it's a so so case.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This looks so tasty. I got to try. We just had the regular EUSHAN CHETZE at our family's favorite restaurant (Fremont, Calif), and we discussed how messy it is to stir fry it at home. But this one is 'cool' looking. Thanks for sharing your result.

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  4. I love garlic. I would love this dish. My family doesn't like eggplants. But I can cook and enjoy it all by myself :D

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  5. i dun really like veggies, but eggplants are one of the few veggies i eat, mmm looks delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  6. i've cooked this before..just slight difference, i steamed the brinjals and just poured over the fried garlic and cooking oil and some soya sauce. It's very tasty though they may look bland

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  7. Eh, very innovative dish leh. I love eggplant!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bee,
    No prob. :)


    MaryMoh,
    Oh sure can, it's very appetizing and can easily sapu habis leh



    Jean,
    My FIL also, only eats eggplants. No greens.



    lena,
    That's a different version. I have a similiar version of the one u mentioned in my blog. This one the garlic taste diff than the fried version. Very pungent!



    Pete,
    I didn't innovate on this, I refered to a recipe.

    ReplyDelete
  9. i love eggplant. i think it would be tastier if add some sweet soy sauce on it. hmm...sweet sour ...my lovely favor!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Jihyeon,
    There is sugar in the recipe for sweetness.
    Sweet soy sauce might change the colour though.

    ReplyDelete

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