Chinese eggplant and minced pork – spicy Sichuan food!

Today’s recipe is a cult classic I’ve chased for years. The un-inspiring name Chinese Eggplant and Minced Pork, often used on menus, does it no justice! It’s a flavour explosion, the saucy version of Sichuan Fish Fragrant Eggplant – sweet, savoury, tangy, and a little bit spicy. This one is a personal favourite!

Spicy Sichuan Chinese eggplant with minced pork

Lovers of Sichuan food – rejoice! Remember Chef Hannah, our Chinese chef at RTM who cracked the Beef in Black Bean Sauce recipe? She’s back, with another copycat I begged her to master – Chinese eggplant with minced pork!

You know the dish I mean – the one with those slippery soft eggplant batons with a little bit of pork mince, smothered in a fierce looking (though surprisingly mild) glossy sauce packed with in-your-face savoury flavours and little bits of chilli.

It’s a Sichuan classic I’ve been on a mission to recreate for years, but just couldn’t get the flavour quite right. I finally caved and asked Hannah to copy a restaurant version – and boom! She made 6 versions in one evening, one after the other, and cracked the code!

Bonus: This recipe calls for a trip to the Asian store but that said, our supermarket-sub version is so good, we’d have happily shared it – if we hadn’t already tasted the OG!.

The greatest compliment of all

Hannah, in case you don’t know, is a chef on my food bank team and comes from a long line of chefs from China’s Szechuan province. She even sent this recipe to her father (a brilliant chef himself), and his only feedback was, “needs more oil.”

If you know Asian foodie families, that’s high praise – basically code for, “perfect, you nailed it, it’s amazing, 12 out of 10!” Because no one’s a tougher critic than family!

And that is how you know this recipe is dead-set legit. I promise you will not be disappointed.

Thank you Chef Hannah. I have such admiration for your cooking skills and hope to bring many more to our readers in the years to come!

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Ingredients

Here’s what you need. Don’t be put off by unfamiliar ingredients—we tested this with regular grocery store substitutes and were blown away. Honestly, if Chef Hannah hadn’t already cracked the Rolls Royce version, I’d have stuck to the alternative version for myself (though I probably wouldn’t have dared publish it – you’ll see why!)

1. STIR FRY sauce

There’s quite a generous amount of sauce in this dish which is glossy and thickened so it coats the eggplant beautifully. Here’s what goes in it:

• Soy sauces – Dark soy makes the sauce darker and adds stronger soy flavour while light soy is more for salt. Substitutions:

  • dark soy with light soy (expect a lighter sauce colour and slightly less flavour)

  • light soy with any all-purpose soy sauce.

  • do not sub the light soy with dark soy (way too strong!)

• Chinese black vinegar – Looks like balsamic vinegar and tastes a bit like it too but with a slight savoury edge. Available at Asian stores and some large supermarkets, though honestly I wouldn’t get it just for the small amount required in this recipe. Substitute with half balsamic vinegar and half rice vinegar instead (it’s pretty close).

• Honey and sugar – To balance the tang and savoury in the sauce. Sugar just adds sweetness whereas just 1 teaspoon of honey, while also adding sweetness, makes the sauce clear and really glossy rather than cloudy. Awesome cooking tip from Hannah!

• Cornflour / cornstarch – Thickens the sauce and makes it beautifully shiny.

2. Speciality add-ins

These two ingredients are essential for an authentic version of this dish – the pickled red chilli was actually the final piece of the puzzle that Chef Hannah figured out to crack the recipe!

But don’t be daunted if they sound unfamiliar or you don’t live near an Asian grocery store. Read on for substitutions.

• Chinese broad bean sauce (doubanjiang) – A fermented paste made from broad beans, soybeans, salt, and often chilli. Savoury, salty, and packed with umami. We use the spicy Sichuan version (Pixian doubanjiang), famous for dishes like Mapo Tofu. Find it at Asian grocers.

• Pickled red chilli (salted chillies) – Chopped, salted Chinese red chillies, used in the original Taste of Shanghai dish. You’ll see flecks in the final dish! It adds a mild spicy tang because we only use 1 teaspoon.

  We use Tan Tan Xiang brand, but you can substitute with finely chopped pickled hot peppers (like Hoyts brand), or even jalapeños (yes, really!). Skip if you really fear spice, but you’ll lose a layer of flavour (because it adds salt and tang too).

Substitutions

No Asian grocer nearby? Try one of these combinations using supermarket ingredients. It’s 92% as good – our whole team was impressed!

• Option 1: 2 tsp miso paste + 3 tsp sambal oelek + 1 tsp chopped pickled hot peppers (like Hoyts)

• Option 2: 1 tbsp chilli bean sauce* + 2 tsp chopped pickled hot peppers

*Chilli bean sauce (Toban Djan) is different from doubanjiang but still works well here. Lee Kum Lee brand is sold at some Coles and Woolworths in Australia, plus Asian stores and online (Amazon here).

3. STIR FRY ADD-INS

And here are the things that go in the stir fry. There’s only a small amount of pork – just 100g/3.5oz – compared to the amount of eggplant which is how it’s supposed to be.

• Pork – This is the traditional meat though if you can’t consume it, it will work with chicken or turkey too, though these meats are leaner.

• Eggplant (aubergine in the UK) – You’ll need one large or two medium eggplants. No need to peel the skin – the bitterness is mostly bred out these days. But if you prefer, go ahead and peel using a potato peeler.

• Oil – For cooking the eggplant and stir fry. Traditionally, the eggplant is deep-fried for that soft, silky texture only oil can give. But we also tested it with my favourite pan-steamed method using just 2 tablespoons of oil – and it was still fantastic! The bold sauce makes up for it, and I’ve happily made the lighter version on Tuesday nights.

• Garlic and ginger – A good amount is essential aromatic flavour base for this recipe!

• Green onion – Use the white part for cooking, and the dark green part for garnish.

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How to cook Chinese eggplant with minced pork

Firstly, choose a method to cook the eggplant. Fried in about 1 cup of oil for the authentic method which will make the eggplant beautifully silky. Or, pan steamed for a healthier version.

1. Fry eggplant (authentic method)

A wok is best as the curved shape of the wok means you get more frying surface area using less oil, then you can use the wok for cooking.

1. Fry – Heat the oil on high heat until it is 180°C/350°F. Fry the eggplant in two batches for around 4 minutes each until lightly browned.

2. Remove the eggplant from the oil using a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel lined plate.

   Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the oil in the wok which we will use to cook the eggplant. The oil can be re-used for any cooking purpose as it is clean.

No wok but want to fry the eggplant? Use a medium saucepan and fill with 2 cm / 0.8″ oil. Fry eggplant per recipe. Then cook the remainder of the recipe in a pan rather than wok.

2. pan-steamed (less-oil method)

This is a method of cooking eggplant I’ve previously shared where it is pan-fried them steamed. You’ll need a large pan with a lid to trap the steam to use this method. It then makes sense to use the same pan for cooking in, though you could switch to a wok if you want to.

1. Brown – Heat 2 tablespoons of oil over high heat in a non-stick pan. Place the eggplant in and lightly brown the flesh-side of each piece – around 90 seconds on each side.

2. Pan-steam – Carefully pour 1/3 cup of water around the eggplant (it will steam on contact, so be careful here). Then quickly place the lid on to trap the steam and cook for 2 minutes until the water has evaporated and the eggplant is cooked all the way through (check with a butter knife). If needed, add a bit more water and continue steaming.

3. cooking

As with all stir-fries, this moves quick! So make sure you have all your ingredients out and ready to toss into into the wok or pan.

1. Mix sauce – Put the cornflour/cornstarch into a jug with the light soy sauce first and mix until lump free. Then add the remaining sauce ingredients and mix to combine. This order matters – cornflour mixes in faster in a small amount of liquid, avoiding lumps.

2. Cook – After cooking the eggplant and removing the excess oil, return the wok to high heat. Cook the pork for 1 to 2 minutes, breaking it up as you go, until you no longer see pink. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for 30 seconds.

3. Add the pickled chilli and broad bean sauce, cook for 1 minute. This will stain the meat an appealing reddish colour.

4. Eggplant – Add the cooked eggplant into the wok.

5. Add sauce in 2 batches – Add half the sauce. Stir gently for about 30 to 45 seconds until the sauce starts to thicken (like a maple syrup consistency). Then add the remaining sauce and cook for another 45 seconds to 1 minute until the sauce thickens and becomes glossy.

6. Sauce thickness – You want the sauce to have a thickness between honey and maple syrup, so it coats the eggplant beautifully. It will thicken a little more as it cools a bit between going from the wok to serving plate to table to serving yourself.

   Then you’re done – ready to pour into a serving bowl!

Serving

Serve this in a shallow bowl-plate (like pictured) or a regular bowl – something to hold all the sauce in and make serving easier. Flat plates just make you chase the eggplant around!

Rice is essential. The way it soaks up the sauce is unbeatable, especially since the eggplant turns so soft and silky it practically melts into it.

Which brings me to the next point – no chopsticks. No need to prove a point here – of course I can use chopsticks! – this is a spoon dish. Scoop and shovel! – Nagi x

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Watch how to make it

Life of Dozer

Jeff’s breakfast hasn’t changed in the 13 years I’ve been taking Dozer to the beach: cappuccino, toasted ham and cheese croissant and a blueberry muffin.

The entire cafe staff know my order off by heart, and they start toasting the croissant as soon as they see my car pull up, even before I get out! 😂 (8 Knots Cafe next door to the park)

That’s Jeff below, and his adorable companion Cubby. He looks after Bayview park like it’s his own, weeding, mowing, picking up litter. It’s pristine because of him, and one of the reasons why visitors travel from wide and far to bring their dogs to Bayview!