This Thai stir-fry comes together quickly and delivers big flavour. Chef, cookbook author and You Tube sensation Pailin Chongchitnant admits to not loving vegetables as a kid. But this succulent eggplant dish was always a favourite. The sweet basil-infused sauce gets absorbed by the tender eggplant and savoury ground pork. It almost seems like it’s not even a vegetable dish! Sure to become the kind of weeknight meal you’ll return to again and again.
Choose young eggplants for this dish because they maintain a firmer texture when cooked. Young eggplants are firm when squeezed and have tight looking skin. Another sure sign is no, or very small, pale seeds in the centre when cut open.
Tao jiew is a Thai fermented soy bean paste that is very salty with a hint of acidity and has a more liquid texture than Japanese miso. Miso makes a reasonable substitute, use the same amount in the recipe and thin it slightly with water.
Eggplant Stir-Fry With Thai Basil
Ingredients
Sauce
- ½ cup chicken or pork stock (unsalted) or water divided
- 2 tbsp fermented bean paste (tao jiew)
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp fish sauce
- ¼ tsp ground white pepper
Stir-Fry
- vegetable oil for deep-frying
- 400 g Chinese or Japanese eggplants cut into 2-in (5 cm) cylinders, then quartered horizontally
- 3-4 cloves garlic chopped
- 2-5 Thai chiles finely chopped, to taste
- 255 g ground pork
- ½ cup julienned red bell pepper
- 1½ cups Thai basil leaves plus a sprig for garnish
- cooked jasmine rice for serving
Instructions
Sauce
- Combine ¼ cup of the stock with soybean paste, sugar, oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce and white pepper in a bowl. Stir until sugar has dissolved.
Stir-Fry
- Add oil to wok or pot to a depth of 1 in (2.5 cm) and bring it to 350℉ over medium-high heat. Add eggplants, a few at a time and fry for 20 to 30 seconds. Remove from oil and drain on paper towel. Note: We are just par-cooking the eggplants, so they should still be quite firm at this point. Do no fry them any longer than 30 seconds as they can absorb a lot of oil if they become too soft. Alternatively, toss the eggplants in a generous amount of oil and air-fry them at 400℉ for 6 to 7 minutes or until edges start to brown.
- Heat 1 tbsp oil in wok or large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic, Thai chiles; cook, stirring, until garlic starts to brown. Add ground pork and cook, stirring, until pork is broken apart and about 60 percent done.
- Add sauce mixture, then stir and cook until pork is 90 percent done. At this point, the pork should still be sitting in plenty of liquid; if it looks dry, add some or all of the remaining stock.
- Add eggplants and bell pepper; keep tossing until eggplants are fully cooked but still hold their shape, about 1 minute. Turn off heat and fold in Thai basil. Taste and adjust seasoning.
- To serve, transfer to deep plate, garnish with sprig of Thai basil and serve with jasmine rice.
Tips from the ELLE Gourmet editors
- You can add the eggplants raw and let them simmer in the sauce to cook, but without frying, the skin turns a dull grey colour when cooked. Briefly frying brightens and sets the skin colour and partially cooks the eggplants before they even see sauce, making it easier to get that firm but cooked texture. Air-frying the eggplant is a compromise, but you won’t have the nice purple colour.
- To test the eggplant for doneness, press on a piece—it will give in to pressure easily but bounce back. Cutting it into pieces that are too big make this harder to achieve, as the outside will overcook before the inside is done. For eggplants larger than 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter, cut the cylinders into six pieces instead of four.
