Chinese Eggplant with Spicy Garlic Sauce
This Chinese eggplant recipe is perfect for all you eggplant and chilli lovers. Soft, meltingly tender eggplants are coated in a silky smooth sauce just bursting with sweet, smoky, salty and spicy flavours
- Prep time
- 10 min
- Cook time
- 31 min
- Yield
- 4 servings
- Difficulty
- HARD
Ingredients
- 2 medium eggplants ()
- 1 tbsp heaped cornflour (cornstarch in the US)
- 5 clove garlic
- 2.5 cm ginger
- 4 red chillies (less, for a milder dish)
- 6 tbsp vegetable oil or peanut oil
- 21/2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp rice vinegar (clear vinegar or Chinkiang vinegar)
- 125 ml water
- 1 tsp cornflour
- 11/2 tsp white sugar
- 1 small spring onion (scallion/green onion, sliced)
- optional tiny amount of sesame seeds
- optional drizzle of sesame oil
Instructions
- 1
Slice the eggplants into sticks or rounds, whatever you prefer. Then rub the cornflour all over the slices and set aside.
- 2
Finely chop the garlic, ginger and chillies and set aside.Slice the spring onion for garnishing and set aside. We'll use both the green and white bits, but you only want a small amount.
- 3
Mix all the sauce ingredients in a medium-sized bowl and set aside.
- 4
Heat 2 Tbsp of the oil on medium-high heat in a wok or deep frying pan and fry half the eggplants for 3 minutes, flipping or turning them a couple of times. Dish out onto a plate.I just shake the wok to flip them over. Don't worry too much about browning them on all sides.
- 5
Repeat with another 2 Tbsp of oil and the second batch of eggplants.
- 6
Preheat the air fryer to 200° (400°F) for 5 minutes, while you're slicing the eggplants.
- 7
Place your eggplant slices in the air fryer basket/container and fry for 10 – 12 minutes. No need to do this in a single layer. Halfway through, just flip the basket like you would a frying pan to flip the eggplant slices. No need to do them individually. This is how I cook most things in the air fryer. When done, take them out of the airfryer and set aside. No need to move to a plate.
- 8
Heat the last 2 Tbsp oil in the same wok on medium heat and fry the chopped garlic, ginger and chillies for 30 seconds.
- 9
Tip in the eggplants and stir to mix well.
- 10
Pour in the sauce on the side of the wok, so you're not "rinsing" the garlic/chilli flavour off, see video. Stir and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and leave to simmer for 5 minutes until the eggplants are cooked through and the sauce has thickened and is coating the slices.
- 11
Dish up, and scatter the spring onions and optional sesame seeds and sesame oil. Serve immediately.