Fish-fragrant aubergine
SERVES 4 | PREP 20 MINS | COOK 15 MINS | EASY |
If you aren’t a fan of aubergine, it’s because you haven’t had this dish yet. Sichuan cooks fry aubergine until it’s golden and buttery, then braise it briefly in a sweet and sour sauce. This double cooking transforms the aubergine’s rather chewy, bland, spongy flesh into buttery and tender morsels that melt in the mouth, made irresistibly heady with garlic and enlivened by hot pickled red chillies and ginger. According to legend, the dish originated along the coast of the Yangtze River in Sichuan, where fishermen often cooked the fish they caught using a pungent mixture of chillies, ginger and garlic. Today the ‘fish-fragrant’ flavour is a standard in the canon of Sichuan cooking, with its distinctive hot, sour and sweet profile.
450g long Chinese or Japanese aubergines (about 3 small)
vegetable oil, for frying
60g potato starch or cornflour
1½ tbsp sichuan chilli bean paste or pickled chilli paste
1 tbsp finely chopped garlic
1 tbsp finely chopped ginger
2 spring onions, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated
SAUCE
120ml unsalted stock (any kind) or water
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce1 tbsp
