Stuffed Eggplant with Black Bean Sauce

Stuffed Eggplant is usually one of three pieces that make up a dish commonly found at Yum Cha. The other two is traditionally stuffed pepper and stuffed tofu. The dish is called 'The three treasures' (or something close to that). I'm not a huge fan of the stuff tofu or pepper, so when I'm cooking at home, I usually just make a dish with only the stuffed eggplant pieces.

sliced eggplant pieces soaking in water

Stuffed Eggplant with Black Bean Sauce
Original recipe passed to me from my grandma

• 6-8 Asian Eggplants (sliced diagonaly in 4cm pieces, with an incision sliced 3/4 way through, soaked in cold water for 1 hr)
• Small bowl of Cornflour (to be used during the 'stuffing' process)
• ~300g White Fish paste (from chinese grocery shops)
• 1 tablespoon of dried shrimp (soaked in water, finely chopped)
• 2 tablespoons of corriander (finely chopped)
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt & a pinch of ground white pepper

Sauce:

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 garlic clove (smashed and finely chopped)
• 1 tablespoon of fermented black beans (fresh or use black bean paste from chinese grocery shops)
• 1 fresh red chilli (finely chopped)
• 2 tablespoon of light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
• 1 cm piece of yellow block sugar (smashed)

Method:

1. To prepare the eggplant, on an angle, slice into 4cm pieces. Then make another incision in between the 4cm piece for the filling.
2. Mix together the fish paste with dried shrimps and corriander. Season with salt and white pepper.
3. Drain the eggplant pieces after they have been soaking in the cold water for 1hr.
4. Rub some cornflour on the insides of the eggplant piece and place about 1 tablespoon of the mixed fish paste into the eggplant. (The cornflour helps hold the fish paste in place).
5. Shallow fry the eggplant pieces in some hot oil.
6. Remove the pieces as they start to turn a golden colour and set aside.
7. In a medium hot wok, add the oil then stir in the garlic, black bean, chilli, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar. Keep on stirring the contents around so it wont burn too easily.
8. Add in the eggplant pieces. And carefully stir fry the content around the wok, until each piece has a coating of the black bean sauce.
   

Serve with some plain steam rice.

Notes:

• Soaking the eggplant in cold water beforehand helps to stop the eggplant pieces turning brown (discolouring).
• Sliced eggplant pieces diagonally to get more surface area
• If using fresh black beans then rinse the beans well through some water, then mince them together using the back of a spoon in a small bowl.
• The cornflour is used to hold the fish paste together after the eggplant has been cooked. Just rub a bit of the cornflour on both sides of the incision made in the middle of the eggplant piece.
• If you don't have yellow block sugar, then just substitute with white sugar - about 1 teaspoon.