Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce (鱼香茄子)

An easy Chinese eggplant recipe made with perfectly cooked Asian eggplant without deep frying or using a steamer and cooked in a delicious garlic sauce made with ground pork.

Table of Contents

• Ingredients for Chinese Eggplant
• How to Prepare Eggplant
• How to Cook Chinese Eggplant
• FAQs and Tips
• Looking for More Takeout Recipes? Try These!
• Recipe Card

Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce, also known as Yu Xiang Qiezi (鱼香茄子) literally translates to fish fragrant eggplant but doesn't have any fish in it at all. This is a warm and cozy dish and is traditionally made with deep-fried eggplants tossed in a sweet, sour, savory, and spicy meat sauce.

Traditionally, this Chinese eggplant dish is made by deep-frying eggplant, which quickly cooks the eggplant all the way through and retains the beautiful purple color. For my recipe, I kept it simple without the use of a deep fryer or a steamer by mimicking the deep frying process in the frying pan and using steam to cook the eggplant all the way through all in the same frying pan. This makes this Chinese eggplant recipe easier to make without the extra equipment and makes the dish less greasy/oily.

My favorite part of this yu xiang qiezi eggplant recipe is eating it with a bowl of white rice and smothering it in the delicious garlic meat sauce. This recipe took many hours of experimentation and eating out to finally get it right, but it was worth every minute and I'm super happy I can replicate my favorite eggplant dish at home now and share it all with you.

Ingredients for Chinese Eggplant

• Chinese eggplant (Asian eggplant) - For this recipe, you should use Chinese eggplant. Do not use Italian eggplant for this recipe, it has a bitter flavor and does not have the same sweetness to it.
• Ground Pork - Traditionally, Chinese eggplant recipes use ground pork, but you can substitute it with ground chicken/turkey.
• Garlic - A very important ingredient that will flavor the sauce. Cannot be omitted.
• Red Chili Pepper - I like to use 1 bird eye chili for the recipe for a bit of heat. It is optional and can be left out if you don't want it spicy.
• Sweet Red Pepper - Peppers gives the sauce an additional layer of flavor.
• Onion - This is a very important ingredient and should not be left out. Alternatively you can also use shallots as well.
• Green Onions\Scallions - This will add a bit of flavor to the sauce. I like to seperate the whites from the green and cook the whites with the sauce, and save the greens as a garnish at the very end.
• Soy Sauce and Sugar - Soy sauce wil be the main source of umami and saltiness for this dish and sugar will be the main source of sweetness.
• Chinkiang Black Vinegar - The black vinegar brings a bit of flavor to the tanginess of the sauce but if you cannot find it, you can substitute it with rice vinegar.
• Ketchup - This is not a traditional ingredient in chinese eggplant but it is my secret ingredient for the garlic sauce recipe. It's a must have and should not be omitted or substituted. The ketchup will bring all the flavors of the sauce together and give it that perfect balance of sweet, tangy and saltiness.
• Corn Starch - This is used as a thickener for the sauce, but it is also used as the ground pork marinade as well to give it a less tough texture once it has been cooked.

How to Prepare Eggplant

1. Wash the eggplant and cut off the tops. You can cut them a few ways. The simplest way to cut them is to cut the eggplant into 2-3 inch lengthwise, and 1 inch thick.

2. Soak the eggplant in water. You don't need to add any vinegar or salt, just plain water. Use a small plate to weigh them down so they stay submerged in the water. The soaking will help with cooking the eggplant with the 'quick steam' method I will be using for this recipe. Soak it for about 5-10 minutes.

3. While the eggplant is soaking, finely chop the onions, green onions, red chili (or optional red pepper) and garlic cloves and set this aside.

4. Mix all the sauce ingredients together. Make sure you are using cold water to prevent the cornstarch from clumping. Set the sauce aside for later.

5. I like to marinate the minced pork with a bit of cooking wine and corn starch. It's an optional step but will add a bit of flavor and better texture to the final dish.

How to Cook Chinese Eggplant

1. Drain the water from the eggplant and set it aside.
2. Add some oil into the pan to lightly coat the bottom of the pan and set it to medium heat. Once the pan is hot, add the eggplant in skin side down. By adding it skin side down, this will mimic the 'deep frying' and keep the skins purple and prevent the eggplant from absorbing the oil. Cook them skin side down for about 3 minutes. If all the eggplant doesn't fit in the pan, you may have to cook it in 2 batches.

3. Once 3 minutes is up, add ½ cup of water into the pan and put a lid on it. This will 'steam' them until they are soft. Steam the eggplant for about 3-5 minutes.
4. Once 3-5 minutes is up, remove the lid. The eggplant should be soft by now. If there is still a bit of water left, you can continue to cook the eggplant with the lid off until all the water dissolves. Move the eggplant off to another dish and set it aside for later.

5. Add a bit more oil back into the pan. Once the pan is hot, add in the pork and cook it for approximately 3-4 minutes or until it is no longer pink.
6. Add in the garlic, onions, green onions, chili peppers and sweet red peppers and toast everything together for about 1-2 minutes until everything is fragrant.
7. Stir the sauce mixture (the corn starch would have settled on the bottom) and add it to the pan and keep stirring until the sauce has thickened. Cook everything for about 1-2 minutes.
8. Add the eggplant back in, and str fry it for about 1 minute to let the eggplant absorb some of the sauce. At this point, don't cook the eggplant for more than 1 minute or it will turn too soft and break up and dissolve into the sauce.
9. Garnish it with some green onions and serve it with white rice and a side of vegetables and enjoy!

FAQs and Tips

• Do you need to peel Chinese eggplant? No, you shouldn't peel the eggplant for this dish because the skin is what is holding the eggplant together and without it, it would become very mushy and would almost become dip-like.
• What is the difference between Italian eggplant and Chinese eggplant? Italian eggplant is much larger than Asian eggplant and also has a bitter flavor to it (which is why you always need to salt it to draw out the bitter liquids within it before you use it). Chinese eggplant has no bitterness to it, and when cooked all the way through actually has a sweet flavor with a creamy texture.
• What does Chinese eggplant taste like? It doesn't have a lot of flavor, but it has a bit of a creamy sweetness to it. It absorbs whatever sauces it is cook in very well so it is an excellent carrier of sauce.
• Do you have any tips on how to pick Chinese eggplants at the store? When I shop for Asian eggplant, I like to look for eggplant that is bright purple. It should not have any brown spots on it and it should not be wrinkled/shrived as that is an indication that it has been sitting at the store for too long. To pick out tender eggplant, it should be slightly bendable as well.
• I can't find Chinkiang black vinegar, can I use something else? You definitely can! When I am out of black vinegar, I use rice vinegar as a substitute.
• You can double the 'Sauce' section to get a saucier final dish.
• Ketchup is not a traditional ingredient in this recipe but it is my secret ingredient for this recipe. It's a important ingredient and should not be omitted or substituted. The ketchup will bring all the flavors of the sauce together and give it that perfect balance of sweet, tangy, and saltiness.
• If you are using a wok, or any seasoned pan for this recipe, make sure you quickly wash off the sauce right after you have finished cooking it so that the vinegar doesn't strip off the seasoning from your pan.

Looking for More Takeout Recipes? Try These!

• Sweet and Sour Pork
• Beef Chow Fun
• Singapore Noodles
• Chilli Chicken
• Crispy Cantonese Beef Chow Mein
• Sweet and Sticky Crispy Beef

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