This dish is actually my mother-in-laws creation (althoug I’ve adapted it to suit my taste more). It’s based on her traditional cooking methods (mostly italian and french inspired) and on her husbands tales from the food he ate when he visited china. I really like the combination of flavours, and my experiments have proven that you need to keep this dish simple, or else the charme goes missing.
I usually just cook this from my head, so the amount of soy and red wine may be off. However I tend to use more wine than soy. Depending on the wine, I might actually use equal sized portions. The secret is to taste the sauce while cooking, since the key is to find the right combination of soy and wine, where you an still taste the wine, but the soy and spices give a refreshing kick. And you can never have to much sauce in this dish…
Italian-chinese wok with eggplant (base recipe)
- 1 eggplant
- 1 red pepper, small
- 3 spring onions
- red wine, 4 tblspoon
- soy, 2 tblspoon
- chili
- sugar
- olive oil
- Cut the eggplant and red pepper into bitesized pieces. Chop the spring onions.
- Heat the oil in a wok. Fry the eggplants until soft and golden. Remove from the wok.
- Now stirfry the red peppers until they are crispy.
- Add eggplants
- Add soy, redwine, chili and sugar. Season to taste. (If it is too salty, add more wine, if it tastes too much like bad wine, add more soy)
- Sprinkle over the spring onions and serve.
Now, my mother-in-law uses the above as a side dish for virtually anything. She even combines it with rocket/arugula to make a salad. (Personally I do not like that, I find the arugula is too bitter).
I find it works very well with rice, especially if you add some meat. Cook some rice, stir fry the meat after the red peppers, end else just use the above procedure. I even used it with quorn filets, which was also very nice.