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Eggplant with Spicy Minced Pork



I love eating eggplant or brinjal but Nic is not to keen on it. He likes it in curries but not cooked plain.

When I do buy brinjal, I have a favourite way of cooking it.

With minced pork. I can get this dish ready in less than 10 minutes because it's simple and delicious. The crunchiness of deep fried brinjal with the spicy minced pork - out of this world.

For this recipe, you need:

1 medium length brinjal (about a foot long)
1/2 cup minced pork, marinated with some cornflour and soya sauce (leave aside for 5 minutes)
fresh ginger, about 2 slices, minced fine
fresh garlic, 1 clove, minced fine
2 tbsp Thai chilli sauce (from bottle, I use Mae Pranom brand)
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
some salt, pepper, sugar and soya sauce to taste
red chillies, sliced, optional - if you like to spice it up more

First, wash and cut brinjal into diagonal slices. Sprinkle some salt over to draw out water. Leave aside for a while.

Next, make a batter from self raising flour and rice flour (2:1 ratio) with a pinch of baking powder mixed with a little water. So if you use 2 tablespoons self raising flour, you need 1 tablespoon rice flour. (This is a good batter for frying fish slices so you can actually make a little more and keep it in the fridge. If you are keeping it, don't mix it with water. Just the flours in an airtight container. When you need to use it, add water.)

You should get a slightly runny batter. Dip brinjal into this batter and deep fry until golden brown. Drain and set aside on a serving plate.

Now for some wok action.

Heat up some oil in a pan and saute ginger and garlic. Add in minced pork and stirfry until almost cooked. Add all seasoning into the pork (Thai chilli sauce, soya sauce, salt etc).

Do not add water as the Thai chilli sauce contains enough liquid. Fry for another 3-5 minutes until pork is cooked through and the mixture is good and dry.

At this stage, you can add the red chillies if you want a good fiery kick to your dish (I add it when I fry the ginger and garlic to bring out extra spicyness! Don't try this if you cannot tolerate too much chillies though). Otherwise, leave it out. Mae Pranom chilli sauce is quite spicy as it is.

As you can see, I am high on spiciness. If you like chillies, I suggest you get the Vietnamese birds eye chillies.

Spoon over deepfried brinjal and serve immediately with steamed rice.

It's absolutely delicious if I may say so myself.
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