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.