“The following recipe is a local classic, and one of my all-time favourite dishes of any cuisine. More than any other dish, for me it sums up the luxuriant pleasures of Sichuanese food – the warm colours and tastes, the subtlety of complex flavours,” explains food writer Fuchsia Dunlop.
“Like other fish-fragrant dishes, it is made with the seasonings of traditional fish cookery: pickled chillies, garlic, ginger and spring onions. But unlike the more illustrious fish-fragrant pork slivers, it derives its colour not from pickled chillies alone, but from pickled chillies combined with broad beans in chilli bean paste.
“The sauce is sweet, sour and spicy, with a reddish hue and a visible scattering of chopped ginger, garlic and spring onion.
“The dish is equally delicious hot or cold. I usually serve it with a meat or tofu dish and a stir-fried green vegetable, but it makes a fine lunch simply eaten with brown rice and a salad. The aubergines, deep-fried to a buttery tenderness, are delectable. I have eaten this dish in restaurants all over Sichuan, and recorded numerous different versions of the recipe. The following one will, I hope, make you sigh with delight.”
Fish-fragrant aubergines
Equipment
- Wok
- Serving dish
Ingredients
- 600 g aubergines
- cooking oil for deep-frying
- 1.5 tbsp Sichuan chilli bean paste
- 1.5 tbsp finely chopped garlic
- 1 tbsp finely chopped ginger
- 150 ml hot stock or water
- 4 tsp caster sugar
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 0.75 tsp potato starch mixed with 1 tbsp cold water
- 1 tbsp Chinkiang vinegar
- 6 tbsp thinly sliced spring onion greens
- Salt
Method
- Cut the aubergines into batons about 2cm thick and 7cm long. Sprinkle with salt, mix well and set aside for at least 30 minutes.
- Rinse the aubergines, drain well and pat dry with kitchen paper. Heat the deep-frying oil to around 200°C (hot enough to sizzle vigorously around a test piece of aubergine). Add the aubergines, in two or three batches, and deep-fry for about three minutes, until tender and a little golden. Drain well on kitchen paper and set aside.
- Carefully pour off all but 3 tbsp oil from the wok and return to a medium flame. Add the chilli bean paste and stir-fry until the oil is red and fragrant: take care not to burn the paste (move the wok away from the burner if you think it might be overheating). Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry until they smell delicious.
- Tip in the stock or water, sugar and soy sauce. Bring to the boil, then add the aubergines, nudging them gently into the sauce so the pieces do not break apart. Simmer for a minute or so to allow the aubergines to absorb the flavours.
- Give the potato starch mixture a stir and add it gradually, in about three stages, adding just enough to thicken the sauce to a luxurious gravy (you probably won’t need it all). Tip in the vinegar and all but one tablespoon of the spring onion greens, then stir for a few seconds to fuse the flavours.
- Turn out on to a serving dish, scatter over the remaining spring onion greens and serve.
Nutrition
The Food of Sichuan by Fuchsia Dunlop is published by Bloomsbury. Photography Yuki Sugiura.
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