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06/24/1999 Archived Entry: "Chinese Egglant with Garlic Sauce"

The move back to my native Brooklyn last fall has been painless. After 23 years in Manhattan, Park Slope seems bucolic – a veritable paradise of greenery, beautiful architecture, and sense of community. For those of you who don’t know about this section of New York City, only 25 minutes by subway to Times Square, I should tell you that it is the largest historic community in the country, with some 16,000 buildings designated as landmarks. Stately tree-lined streets of Victorian brownstone row houses are interspersed with huge Romanesque, Queen Anne, and Neo Classical limestone mansions (many now divided into grand apartments, but not all). The neighborhood was laid out and developed in the late nineteenth century in tandem with the creation of Prospect Park. The world-class Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Brooklyn Museum are only blocks away. The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), which is the world’s premier modern dance venue, is within walking distance. The food shopping is great. And I have a crabapple tree outside my kitchen window.

The only thing missing is a decent Chinese take-out. Every once in a while, I used to love to veg-out in front of the tube, eating dinner out of white cardboard containers. Alas, that era seems to be over.

I suppose it’s time to start cooking Chinese myself, which I’ve never done in any serious or consistent way. Grace Young could easily be my inspiration. Grace, who I’ve known for years because she heads up a test kitchen that backs up food companies and book publishers (and we worked on a Time-Life cookbook together eons ago), has written a wonderful cookbook that not only records her Cantonese family’s recipes, but explains the spirit and philosophy of Chinese cooking. The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing has recipes for many of my favorite Chinese dishes – Pepper and Salt Shrimp, Scallion Cakes, Clams in Black Bean Sauce, Salt-Baked Chicken, to name a few – and many I can’t wait to try. Tender Beef on Rice, which is strips of stir-fried marinated flank steak that finish cooking on top of the rice (in Grace’s chapter called “The Meaning of Rice”) is one of them.

Read her essay called “The Breath of a Wok” and 1) you’ll understand what that means and 2) you’ll run out and buy a flat-bottomed wok. I should point out, however, that Grace, always the all-American girl who grew up in San Francisco, says you can get the same results in a cast iron skillet.

There are enticing and easy recipes for steaming fish, for Drunken Chicken, that old war-horse of Cantonese restaurants, and for Sweet and Sour Pork. I learned from the header note on the sweet and sour recipe that not only is sweet and sour pork an authentic Chinese dish, not a dish created to please Western palates, but because the word for sour in Cantonese sounds like the word for grandchild, some families always make a sweet and sour dish for New Years to insure more grandchildren in the coming year. That’s the kind of cultural tidbit you get with almost every recipe.

One of the most frequent recipe requests I get is for Broccoli with Garlic Sauce or Eggplant with Garlic Sauce, and Grace has the latter in her book. Naturally, the homemade version far outshines any I’ve ever eaten in a Chinese restaurant – take out or eat in. The sauce is bright and sharp and unthickened – no cornstarch to make it gloppy. It’s a revelation. It will be difficult to eat anything but the homemade version from now on. So yes, I guess my house has seen the last of white Chinese take-out containers.

The recipe is printed below as it appears in “Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen,” but I’ve made the substitution suggestions in parenthesis after consultation with Grace. See the note if you want to adapt the recipe to broccoli.


Eggplant in Garlic Sauce
from “Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen,” by Grace Young
Serves 4 to 6 as part of a multi-course meal

3 medium Chinese eggplants (or any long and narrow type eggplant), about 1 pound
2 tablespoons chili garlic sauce (available in jars in Asian markets)
2 tablespoons thin soy sauce (or light soy sauce)
2 tablespoons Chinese red rice vinegar (or plain, clear rice vinegar)
2 tablespoons Shao Hsing rice cooking wine (or dry sherry)
1 tablespoon sugar
7 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup ground pork butt (or any ground pork)
2 tablespoons finely minced garlic
2 tablespoons finely minced ginger
1/2 cup chopped scallions

Remove the stems and trim the ends from the eggplants. Cut the unpeeled eggplants into scant 1/2-inch-thick by 2 1/2-inch-long strips.

In a small bowl, combine the chili garlic sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, rice wine, sugar, and 2/3 cup cold water.

Heat a 14-inch flat-bottomed wok or skillet over high heat until hot but not smoking. Add 3 tablespoons oil and half the eggplant, and stir fry 2 minutes, or until some of the eggplant continues to brown and soften. Transfer the eggplant to a plate. Repeat with the remaining eggplant and 3 tablespoons of the oil, transferring to the plate with first batch.

Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, and the pork, garlic, and ginger, and stir fry about 1 minute, or until golden and fragrant.

Return the eggplant to the wok. Re-stir the chili sauce mixture, and swirl into the wok. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook 5-to 8 minutes or until eggplant is just tender. Stir in scallions and serve immediately.

VARIATION: To make broccoli with garlic sauce, use 1 bunch broccoli. Cut the flowerettes from the stalks. Peel the stalks, then cut them into 1/4-inch thick diagonal slices. Cut the larger flowerettes into small pieces. Stir-frying the broccoli in two batches, as you do the eggplant above, cook the stems first, then the flowerettes. They should take about 3 minutes each to get crisp-tender. Add the remaining oil and the sauce ingredients, as above. Return the broccoli to the pan, cover and cook about 4 minutes, until fully tender. If there is too much liquid in the pan for your taste, uncover the broccoli for the last 2 minutes.