Eggplant and Ground Meat Stir-fry
Cook: Sharon Yam (@yamsandchips)
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Servings: 3-4 servings
Course: Entree
Cuisine: Chinese
Difficulty: Easy
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #hkersfood - we’d LOVE to see how yours turn out on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! You might even be featured by us ;)
I love, love, love eggplants. When I was in middle school, much to the chagrin of my mother, my favorite lunch was the fried and stuffed Three Treasures (煎釀三寶) from a little stall in Tin Hau.
While Asher usually isn’t a big fan of eggplants because of its texture, I have managed to cook it in a way he enjoys. The trick is to draw out the moisture from the eggplant and cook it with a lot of patience.
This dish and variations of it is very common in Chinese home kitchens. Not only is it flavourful, it is also extremely easy to make. While I used ground turkey in this recipe because that’s what I had in the fridge, but the more traditional way is to use ground pork.
Feel free to adapt this recipe based on your own taste. You can make it vegan by substituting the meat with long beans.
Ingredients
3 Chinese eggplants
280g ground turkey
1 tbsp garlic paste, or 3 cloves of minced garlic
½ tbsp ginger paste, or 1 thumb of minced ginger
To prepare the eggplants: ½ tsp salt
Salt, to taste
½ tbsp light soy sauce
¼ cup broth or water
¼ tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp Chinese chili bean paste
sesame oil
4 tbsp cooking oil
⅛ tsp sugar
chopped green scallions for garnish
Method
Cut the eggplants into thick slices.
Salt the eggplants thoroughly and place them in a colander. Make sure to put a bowl underneath it to catch any liquid. Let sit for 10 minutes.
Use a paper towel to press the eggplants until they are dry.
Heat up a wok with 3 tbsp oil. Once the wok is hot, put the eggplants in. Turn the heat to medium-low.
Add water to the eggplants. Salt the eggplants lightly.
Cover the wok, and cook the eggplants until they have fully softened, stirring occasionally. If they begin to stick to the wok, add a bit more oil and turn down the heat. This usually takes 6-9 minutes.
Once the eggplants are soft and brown, transfer them to a bowl. Set aside.
Add 1 tbsp of oil back to the wok. The amount of oil you need depends on how greasy your wok still is. Adjust the amount if need be.
Turn down the heat. Add the garlic and ginger paste, or minced garlic and ginger if those are what you are using. Cook for 30 seconds.
Once the ginger and garlic are fragrant, add ground turkey. Turn up the heat to medium. Add a bit of salt to taste. Make sure not to over-salt your meat now as we will be adding more seasoning later.
Once the meat begins to brown, add Chinese chili paste. Stir to mix evenly.
When the meat is about to cook through, add the eggplants back into the wok. Season with light soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, and sesame oil.
Before serving, taste the dish. Add salt if need be.
Transfer to a plate. Garnish with diced scallions.
Serve immediately with rice.
Support our Journalism with a Contribution
Many people might not know this, but despite our large team of contributors, which we are immensely grateful for, We Are HKers is still a small bootstrapped group that runs on no outside funding and loans. Everything you see today is built on the backs of warriors who have sacrificed opportunities, time, meals and sleep to help give HKers all over the world a voice and keep our culture alive.
However, we still face many trials in the running of our platform, from finding the necessary equipment for our video interviews, to subscribing to the necessary tools to facilitate our remote work process of our global team, to trying not to get fired from our main jobs as we run this project secretly in the background, and to keeping our platform running and storing our files securely.
We hope you consider making a contribution, so we can continue to provide you with moving stories of HKers all over the world and keep our heritage and culture alive. Even a £1 contribution goes a long way. Thank you for everyone’s support. We love you all and can’t appreciate you guys enough.
**Please note that your support of We Are HKers Ltd. does NOT constitute a charitable donation. We really appreciate your support in independent journalism. If you have any questions about contributing to We Are HKers, please contact us here.
