Good base recipe for Szechuan-style garlic eggplant. Need to season the eggplant with some salt/pepper a bit while frying. Jazz it up using fresh crushed garlic instead of the powder, at least 2 fat cloves, right at the end of stir-frying the egglplant (mellowing the garlic), along with some green onion. For more flavor, add extra dash of oyster sauce and a good dash of fish sauce, a little more pepper flakes as well. Goes very well with added thin-sliced pork/chicken/beef. Just toss it in after you get the eggplant stir fryin' for a couple mins (takes less time to cook).
Love Love Loved this ~ Pretty much made as written except the following: 3 cloves fresh pressed garlic in lieu of garlic powder, chicken broth in lieu of water and 1/2 TB each of Chinese Garlic Chile Paste & Chinese Chile Paste in lieu of crushed red pepper flakes. I couldn't believe how wonderful this turned out, better than a restaurant, I was very impressed and will make this again and again :-)
Delish!!!! I used hoisin sauce instead, since that is what I had on hand. I also reduced the sugar to 1tsp and it was plenty. So healthy and yummy at the same time! Love it!
I have made this twice now and the second time was significantly better. 1) Use fresh garlic if you have it!! (Or pre-chopped garlic in oil). It tastes so much better than with the garlic powder. I used 2-3 bulbs. 2) Ground pork tastes amazing with this dish. I fried up the ground pork seperately to get some browning on the meat then I drained the excess fat. I added the whole thing to the eggplant mixture at the end of cooking. Delicious. Thanks for the recipe!
This was fabulous. my husband devoured it and he *never* eats eggplant. I subbed homemade vegetable stock for the water and I used 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper and two teaspoons sriracha hot chili sauce. I also used 4 tablespoons of soy instead of two as I had no oyster sauce. I also added bok choy and some diced chicken and served over brown rice. Yummy!
This is a great recipe to start with. I like to use fresh garlic over dried - and when making Asian sauces I tend to go with brown sugar instead of white. I also switched from soy to tamari - however, as written I'm sure the original is great too! I loved this dish and am very happy to have found it. I've craved Eggplant with Garlic sauce many times over the years and now when the craving hits I have the perfect recipe! Thank you!
I'd give this five stars for the taste, which is wonderful (actually, I used four big garlic cloves, instead of garlic powder), but it loses one star for the presentation. By this recipe, the eggplant turns into mush. The eggplant chunks disappear. Here's why. Frying the eggplant for 4 minutes makes perfectly cooked eggplant. But when you add the water to the hot frypan, it boils explosively before it cools. Then you simmer, and the eggplant just turns into glop. DO NOT OVERCOOK THE EGGPLANT! The water won't be "absorbed". Instead, I recommend frying for just two minutes, cooling the frypan after frying, and adding all the other ingredients mixed together. Then simmer until the cornstarch starts to congeal. That leaves you with real chunks of eggplant in a thick sauce.
BTW, to add some protein, throw in half a cup of frozen peas. Nice.
This is excellent. I tried another recipe for stir fried eggplant on this site and this one is much better. I didn't add as much sugar and garlic powder. And I didn't have any pepper flakes on hand so I added a hint of tabasco. It came out great.
really REALLY good! I always order this when I go to Asian restaurants but now I am so happy I can make this any time! As suggested by other reviewers I used 3 fresh garlic cloves instead of garlic powder and I used 1/2 TBSP of Chilli Garlic sauce instead of crushed red pepper flakes. One of my favourite recipes on allrecipes.com! Thank you!
Not sure what went wrong w/ this but the entire thing just turned to mush
