Chinese Cold Eggplant Salad

I ate this cold eggplant appetizer at a restaurant in Flushing, Queens a few weeks ago when I spent a week in New York City. I have tried to replicate it the best I can since then, and although the dish I had wasn’t spicy, I made mine spicy, because for some reason I need to make everything spicy nowadays. Maybe it’s the old people taste buds or something, but the more spice the better. You can opt out of using the spicy peppers if you wish, and alter the seasonings to your preference. I only used 3 cloves of minced garlic, but if you plan on sleeping on the couch tonight go crazy and add a couple more.

I used 2 Chinese long eggplants for this dish, which you can find in most Asian grocery stores. They cost me $1 for 4 of them, so it won’t set you back that much. The total cost of this dish comes in under $1 too. My husband loves this dish so much he wants me to make multiple batches to keep in Tupperware for snacking. Just keep the cilantro and fresh spicy peppers in a separate container to garnish before serving.

Another thing I love about this dish is that it isn’t fried, which most eggplant dishes that I’ve had are. When most eggplant are fried, the eggplant soaks up the oil like a sponge which leads you to use even more oil to fry the surface. This eggplant is steamed, placed on a dish, then drizzled with a sauce consisting of lots of minced garlic and Serrano peppers, and marinated for 20 minutes before serving. I have a feeling I’ll be steaming eggplant for other dishes and combining with different sauces, so stay tuned.

I used one Serrano pepper (with seeds) for this recipe, but if you want it milder you can use a half pepper, or remove the seeds. Or use jalapeno or some type of milder pepper. The few recipes I’ve found for this dish used too much salt so I reduced it according to our tastes, but you can adjust after you make the sauce.

(adapted from chinasichuanfood.com)

Wash the eggplant and cut the ends off. Cut eggplant into thirds lengthwise, then quarter each piece. If some sections are larger than the others, cut them into 6 pieces rather than 4.

Put eggplant in steamer and steam for approximately 13 minutes or until softened.

Gently pick them up (I used chopsticks) and place on a serving dish. Set aside.

As the eggplant is steaming, make the sauce. In a small bowl, combine hot water and sugar until thoroughly dissolved. Then add light soy sauce, sesame oil and black vinegar.

In a small pot, heat 1 tsp. corn oil to medium high heat. Add garlic and half of the Serrano pepper, and cook for 30 seconds.

Pour everything into the sauce mix.

Pour the sauce mixture on top of the eggplant, and let marinate for at least 20 minutes. Garnish with cilantro and the remaining Serrano peppers when ready to serve.