hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to actually decent vegetarian recipes with a shot at one of my favorite classic Thai stir fries, which is a Thai basil eggplant. For those following along, in this series, we have been diving into the wonderful world of stir fries and recipes that are not necessarily designed to be vegetarian, but simply occur this way because of the proteins and veggies that the dishes highlight. This tends to happen a lot in tofu-centric chinese cuisine, but today we’re actually gonna be touching on one of my favorites from Thai wok cooking, focusing (as you might guess) on the use of eggplant.
As the name implies, a Thai basil eggplant stir fry is a relatively straightforward but still deceptively tricky one, making use of Thai basil, eggplant, and a quick dark soy sauce and fish sauce base. Those that have had (bad) versions this dish however (or really, any bad eggplant stir fry), will be familiar with the sensation of biting into a piece of eggplant, only to squeeze out a puddle of cooking oil, which happens all too frequently because of the spongey nature of the eggplant. So, today we’ll be diving into my favorite way of properly stir frying this deceptively tricky vegetable, and just generally how to NOT end up with a giant bowl of mushy, goopy, oily eggplant, which nobody wants. Hope you try it.
Serves 2-3
INGREDIENTS
4 cloves garlic
1 cup Thai basil
2 Chinese eggplants
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
6 Thai chiles
peanut oil
INGREDIENTS (sauce)
4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp black vinegar
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp sambal oelek
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce
PREP
CRUSH and mince the garlic, set aside
SLICE the Thai chiles, set aside
LARGE DICE the eggplant, set aside
DESTEM the Thai basil, set aside
REMOVE the core of the bell pepper, then slice thinly into strips and set aside
COMBINE all sauce ingredients, set aside
ON THE STOVE
HEAT a wok as hot as possible, then add 1 tbsp peanut oil and long yao
ADD the eggplant and toss for 5 minutes until slightly fork tender, adding additional oil as needed, 1 tbsp at a time
REMOVE the eggplant, reheat the wok, add 4 tbsp peanut oil and long yao
ADD the garlic and Thai chile, then bloom until fragrant for about 15 seconds
ADD the bell pepper and toss for 1-2 minutes
ADD the eggplant and sauce back to the wok and toss to combine
ADD the Thai basil, remove from heat, and toss on residual heat