This is another dish I attempted in keeping with efforts to keep my wok hot and active! Well, my enthusiasm waxes and wanes, with me ordering in last weekend. But no matter! I am sure I will find something exciting to cook this week.
This eggplant (or what I usually refer to as brinjal) dish is I believe the one (or similar to the one) that I love when I used to dine at (the old) Esquire Kitchen. In fact the last time I had my favorite dish was at Esquire Kitchen @ 1 Utama.
This recipe is from Made With Lau and what delighted me was that Daddy Lau steams the eggplants instead of deep frying. Ah! I like that! Previously I made another delicious brinjal dish where the eggplant is also steamed.
Steaming is pretty much hassle free especially when I have an electric steamer. So while the eggplants were steaming away, I prepared the other ingredients which were simply (lots of) garlic, ginger and spring onions.
The sauce is pretty easy too - light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, fermented bean paste (taucheo), cornflour, Shaoxing wine and water - all mixed together, making sure that there is a balance of sweet, salty and sour.
Once the eggplants are tender, it is time to cook. Simply saute the garlic, ginger and spring onions until aromatic. Then add the sauce and once it is boiling, add the steamed eggplants and stir until well coated. Lastly drizzle a dash of sesame oil for added fragrance and serve! Easy, right?
As you can see, I also added red and green capsicums to the dish.
Well, that's because those were leftovers from the other dish I attempted, Mongolian Beef. So instead of wasting, I just used them up.
The next time I cook Eggplant With Garlic Sauce, I would add some minced meat into it and I bet that would make the dish even more awesome.
The only problem of all the dish you cook is there will increase the intake of "rice" which is no..no to my diet ..hahahaha!
ReplyDeleteLOL! Me too, supposed to eat less carbs but cannot tahan :D
DeleteMy girl loves eggplant, she'll enjoy this. Looks really good.
ReplyDeleteSame here, I enjoy eggplant in any form.
DeleteI loved Esquire - used to go to the one at Sg Wang in the 80's...and there was one across the road from Federal Hotel, Bukit Bintang later...and one at Mid Valley. Been so long since I ate there...
ReplyDeletehttps://suituapui.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/the-last-time/
Oh yes, I have been to the one at Bukit Bintang once. Pity that the cooking is not as good as before.
DeleteI just love the taste of colourful capsicums and brinjal. So delicious! I love your this dish! Can sell for MYR 20++ and more due to the beef.
ReplyDeleteLOL! I also love the taste of capsicum.
DeleteUsed to have brinjals with minced meat at Canton-i branch at City square JB, this dish never fails to excite me with the softness of the brinjals and favourful sauce. Yours looks good!
ReplyDeleteThe next time I cook this, I will add minced meat so that it is more like the one at the restaurant.
DeleteNice dish! I can eat this with lotsa rice.
ReplyDeleteMe too. This type of dishes must have rice, baru syiok!
DeleteI love Esquire Kitchen's eggplant dish too. I don't deep fry or pan-fry brinjal at home anymore since I discovered I could soften them by baking with the use of so much less oil. Looks like steaming is another way. Jamie Oliver softens his eggplant on a (gas) stove top. He just puts the whole eggplant on it until it blisters, remove some of the hangus skin and just scrape the fless off the eggplant. It's so soft it almost looks like a paste...good for making eggplant dips, I guess (I can't try coz I don't have a stove top). :(
ReplyDeleteMy late grandma used to do that Jamie Oliver method LOL! The eggplant becomes very soft and we eat it as a dish with sambal belacan. It's really good, I tell you!
DeleteI used to bring both my late parents to dine at Esquire Kitchen every weekend because their dishes pleased my fussy mother more than anyone else. When my parents died, bye bye to that restaurant too. Their standard died too while the prices rocketed up.
ReplyDeleteI loved to eat their Esquire Kitchen's brinjal dishes and now you just gave me some brilliant ideas for our next charity homes cooking. We did serve the brinjals once but I prefer your seasoning!
Such sad but warm memories of your parents. The cooking was very good under the old management. That's why my partner and I could sapu 4 bowls of rice each whenever we dine there LOL! But now, I don't even want to eat there.
DeleteI always avoid frying my brijal because I know it tends to absorb oil when your technique is wrong or not skillful enough. But I did once a couple of weeks ago and found that it's not as disastrous as I thought!
ReplyDeleteI saw your brinjal still retained its shape, I like mine very soft in texture (almost mushy form). :P
Mine could have been steamed a bit longer. I also like it mushy since brinjal is not nice when it still has a bite.
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