This is an easy, healthy vegetable dish. You can eat it warm or at roomtemperature. Quite convenient if you have other dishes to prepare. I think it combines very nicely with “sichuan water boiled beef” .
It’s best with the long and thin asian eggplants (see photo below). The bigger european ones can be a bit bitter, which you can get rid of when you slice them open, put in a colander, sprinkle with seasalt and wait for an hour to extract moist and bitterness. Then rinse well and pat dry. When you use seasalt it’s easier to rinse of later, so the chance of the eggplant becoming too salty is smaller.
RECIPE
500 gr chinese eggplant
When you use asian eggplants you can steam them with the skin still on for about 10 – 15 minutes or until tender. Leave them to cool down a bit so you can handle them, then peel them and slice them in cubes or longer sticks. Put in a bowl and mix with a dressing of
3 T light soy sauce
1 T shaoxing ricewine
1 T sesame oil
2 t white rice vinegar
1 t sugar
1 t chili-bean paste (toban jiang)
1 spring onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Kok Robin 
Definitely going to try this one day! I love that it’s not dripping with oil!
Me too! And off course it’s not as velvetty as the recipes that are dripping with oil, but it is still surprisingly soft and yummie.
This sounds good. I picked up some chili-bean paste a while ago and I have been wondering how I could use it.
It’s used in many many sichuan-dishes.
Like this one : Sichuan boiled beef
Probably the most famous dish, based on chili-bean paste is Mapo Tofu. I haven’t posted that recipe yet.
But now you have it, you will probably start to notice it in more and more recipes. :-)