Steamed Eggplant with Meat Sauce

I think by now you should know that I love eggplant as I had quite a few eggplant dishes here. If I see some nice firm eggplant at the Asian store I will definitely buy it. As for Carlos he is not a fan of it. There is no way I can make him eat it no matter how I cook it.

This is a relatively simple dish to cook. Normally I will just stir-fry the eggplant together with the minced meat but this time I did something different. I first steamed the eggplants and then cook the meat sauce and pour over it. As usual I added some chilies to the sauce to give it a bit of spicy kick to the dish and it goes really well with rice.

Ingredients:

2 Japanese/Asian eggplants
1 piece chicken breast/or any type of protein – minced
2 cloves of garlic - finely chopped
2 shallots - sliced thinly
2 small red chilies – sliced thinly
1 tbsp of fermented bean paste (tau cheong)
1 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of dark soy sauce
2 tbsp of soy sauce
½ cup of water + 1/2 tsp of cornstarch
2 spring onion – diced small

1. Clean and cut the eggplant into 1” length. Season with some olive oil and salt and steam on high heat until soft.
2. While the eggplant is steaming, cook the sauce. Heat up a tablespoon olive oil in a frying pan, stir fry garlic and shallots until fragrant and lightly brown.
3. Add in the fermented bean paste, stir-fry for a few second and add in the meat and chilies. Continue to stir-fry until the meat changes color.
4. Add in all the seasoning and the water. Bring it up to boil and cook until sauce reduce and thicken. Check seasoning.
5. Pour sauce over the steamed eggplant and sprinkle the top with some spring onion. Serve warm.