Chinese eggplant recipe–Szechuan fish sauce eggplant (Yu Xiang Eggplant) is often listed as Chinese eggplant in hot garlic sauce. It is a savory dish with a fabulous balance of hot, sweet, and sour flavors. This can be the first topping Chinese eggplant recipe.
What’s Yu Xiang sauce?
Yu Xiang sauce or fish flavor sauce is often referred to as hot garlic sauce. It is made with a variety of ingredients including chili peppers, garlic, ginger, scallion, black vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce. The sauce is often used as a combined stir-frying sauce. One of the representatives of Sichuan cuisine is Sichuan eggplant, or Yu Xiang Qie Zi(鱼香茄子in Chinese), and the famous Yu Xiang Rou Si(鱼香肉丝 or fish-fragrant shredded pork). Some menus name Yu Xiang eggplant as Chinese Eggplants in hot garlic sauce.
The sauce can also be used to serve as a dipping sauce or make fried rice. There are discussions about the reason why this sauce is called fish fragrance. We get two reasonable reasons here.
- the sauce is commonly used to cook fish and then move forward to other dishes. So the sauce is named fish flavor or fish fragrance in Chinese.
- The key ingredient pickled chili pepper is pickled with a fish in the jar. So it brings a natural smell of fish.
So which one looks more reasonable for you?
What does Yu Xiang Sauce taste?
The Yu Xiang sauce has well-balanced sweet, savory, and hot flavors. This is extremely common in Sichuan cuisine in which many unique flavors can be achieved by adjusting the ratio of the ingredients. This unique fish fragrant sauce is made with pickled red pepper, garlic, ginger, scallions, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. The particular balanced flavor can be good with almost all types of protein and vegetables. Plus, you can use the sauce to make fried rice too.
The flavors of Yu Xiang sauce might be slightly different in areas in Sichuan. In some places, only pickled peppers are used while in other places doubanjiang is also used for a stronger flavor and color. Compared with other chili sauces, doubanjiang has a strong capacity of adding red color to the dish. You can make a quick pickled pepper via this instruction.
Recipe FAQs
Although Sichuan peppercorn is commonly used in many Sichuan dishes, we do not need it for the fish fragrant series.
Well, as the key ingredient, I highly recommend you try to get some pickled chili peppers. But this can be pickled chili pepper (泡椒) can be replaced by doubanjiang for sure. Although the flavor may differ a lot, I am sure doubanjiang can create lovely flavors too. Also, you can check this fermented chili paste which may work really better as a substitute for Sichuan pickled peppers.
Cook eggplants with less oil
One of the reasons why eggplants seem hard to cook is because they absorb lots of oil at the first stage of heating. In restaurants, eggplants are usually deep-fried first before stir fry with seasonings. Deep-frying in a large amount of oil can keep the purple color and cook the eggplants very quickly. So that’s a restaurant-efficient pursing method. But it is not a very economic choice for home cooking. So pan-frying sounds like a better choice. We can use pan-frying with a very small amount of oil but achieve a very similar result. Following are tips for pan-frying with less oil at home.
- soak the eggplants in salty water for around 15 minutes. The water absorbed can fasten up the cooking process.
- Coat a layer of starch on the eggplant strips. Starch helps to form a crispy shell and better sauce attachment. But optional!
Ingredients needed
Eggplants – almost every type of eggplant works
ground pork– or chicken or beef
Pickled peppers – this may be hard to find but can be replaced by doubanjiang in daily cooking.
Doubanjiang – I combine doubanjiang with pickled peppers to increase the red color of the dish.
Black vinegar – for the lovely sour taste
Light soy sauce – for savory basement
Starch – I recommend using cornstarch or potato starch for coating the eggplants and thickening the bowl sauce.
Sugar – I use a larger amount of sugar to present a strong sweet flavor.
Ginger, garlic, and green onion (scallion) – basic aromatics for most Sichuan sauces.
Instructions
Cut eggplant into strips and then soak them in salty water for 10 minutes. Remember to add weight. Then drain and spread 1/2 cup of cornstarch in batches. Mix well, and make sure all of the eggplant strips are well coated.
Add oil to pan or wok and fry eggplants until soft. Transfer out. You can do this by batches and leave some space between each strip so they will not stick together.
Heat another 1 tablespoon of oil in a wok, and fry minced pork until crisp and browned. Add doubanjiang and chopped pepper to continue cooking for 1 minute for red oil. Add garlic, chopped peppers, green onion white part, and ginger to stir-fry for the aroma.
After adding the sauce, add eggplants and then mix well quickly.
What to serve with?
The top partner for Yuxiang eggplants is plain staple food like steamed rice or noodles because there are lots of sauces that can attach to the grains and noodles.
Other Yu Xiang dishes
Other eggplants recipes
- Chinese eggplants with minced pork
- Savory crispy eggplants
- Chinese stuffed eggplants
- Di San Xian- eggplants with green pepper and potatoes
- Steamed eggplant with a chili sauce
Yu Xiang Qie Zi (Sichuan Eggplant)
Ingredients
- 2 long eggplants , around 400g
- 1/4 cup mince pork
- 1 tbsp. chopped pickled peppers
- 1/2 tbsp. broad bean paste , Doubanjiang
- 2 garlic cloves , chopped
- 1 tbsp. chopped ginger
- 2 green onions , white part and green part separately chopped
- 2 tbsp. vegetable cooking oil
- 1 tsp. salt for soaking
- starch for coating
Bowl sauce
- 2 tsp. light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp. black vinegar
- 5 tbsp. water
- 1 tbsp. starch , cornstarch
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- 1/4 tsp. salt
Instructions
Preparation
- Prepare the eggplants | Roll cut washed eggplants into long strips (try to keep some skin on each one). Then soak the eggplant strips in salty water for around 15 minutes. Move out and drain. Coat with starch (optional but I recommend using since this helps the sauce attach on the eggplants)
- Prepare the bowl sauce | Prepare a bowl; mix all the ingredients for stir fry sauce. Then set aside.
Fry the eggplants
- Heat up 2 tablespoons of oil in wok or a pan and fry the eggplants until slightly browned by batches.
Make Yu Xiang Sauce
- Heat another 1 tablespoon of oil in wok, and fry mince pork until crisp and browned. Add doubanjiang and chopped pepper to continue cooking for 1 minute for red oil. Add garlic, chopped peppers, green onion white part and ginger to stir-fry for the aroma.
- Stir in the sauce. Cook for a while until the sauce is thickened.
Assemble the dish
- Mix well and make sure the eggplants are well coated. Move from wok, sprinkle chopped green onion! I highly recommend serving this with steamed rice. The magic sauce can turn plain steamed rice into something extremely delicious.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
I have some Pixian Doubanjiang in my fridge, do you think that would be good to use in this recipe or should I stick with the standard Doubanjiang?
This recipe is awesome! I love eggplants, but it can be hard for me to cook them without drying them out. This recipe comes out perfect.
I came to your blog after I was spending way too much money on delicious Sichuan food in restaurants so I decided to try to make my own. I have now made at least 7 different Sichuan recipes from your site and all of them have been delicious! So far every recipe I have tried has been easy and affordable as well. I especially like how you take the time to explain to westerners like me the particular ingredients and flavors that make Sichuan food unique.
Thank you so much for so many great recipes! I look forward to trying many more!
Jessica,
Thank you so much for this encouraging feedback. Really make me feel all the efforts are paying off. Happy cooking and enjoy your homemade Sichuan food.
Hi Jessica, i feel you. If you enjoy Sichuanese cuisine you have to buy the book “The food of Sichuan” by Fuchsia Dunlop. ENJOY!
where do you get the pickled pepper ?
We always get pickled peppers in our jars. But you can choose to buy from Asian stores or make your own with a quick method.
Hi
I try today this recipe, very well explain and easy to do when you have all ingredients in your kitchen.
Very tasty and a bit hot.
Thanks..
BR
Thanks Robin for your lovely feedback! Yes, a bit hot, it is a real dish from Sichuan.
Truly fantastic recipe! Have done this at least 10 times if not more often. I changed the way I prepare the Aubergines though. I did the whole cornflour/frying thing. A lot of work with all the presoaking! Then I started just grilling the aubergine slices on the BBQ. That worked OK too. Now I put the slices on baking paper drizzled with olive oil in a very hot oven (220 celsius) for 25 minutes. Whilst they’re cooking I do the rest then it’s just a quick assembly job in the wok. 30 mins from start to finsh 🙂 And the aubergines come out of the oven just great !! Thanks for the recipe!!!
Nice idea!!! Alan. I never thought that this dish can be finished in oven. I must try it. That process seems so energy saving.
Magic sauce is right! My husband and I absolutely love this dish. Your site has gotten us through the pandemic — we’ve made dozens of your recipes and I often come to look for ideas 🙂 Some of my other faves are the stir fried cabbage, spicy potato salad, egg and tomato stirfry, tomato egg drop soup. Thank you so much for all of this work! My family really appreciates it. Take good care!
Thanks Kim for your support and feedback. Happy cooking!
This is my favorite dish in restaurants, and I was eager to try it out myself. Your recipe was better than anything I have had in any restaurant! It might be helpful for those of us new to Chinese cooking to provide examples of the containers of some the containers (broad bean paste, pickled peppers, black vinegar) as it took me quite a while in the Asian supermarket to figure it out! Worth every second of work though! This was amazing!
Thank you Chad. I am super proud of my Yu Xiang recipes too. I am so happy to read your feedback.
Hi Elaine,
thank you for the recipe! it turned out very, very nice! (I used Korean Gochugaru instead of pickled peppers though because of availability..)
One question: Can I also steam the eggplants instead of stirfrying them? Also, how soft shud they be in the end?
(Yesterday I fried them as written in the recipe, but it got quite gluey because of the starch, and I’ll have a hard time cleaning the pan…)
Greetings from Berlin 🙂
Rapha,
Steaming sounds like a lovely pan. But steamed eggplant don’t tastes as good as pan fried version. I suggest slightly adding more oil to avoid sticky and then remove the oil out before frying the aromatics.
Alright! Thank you very much for the reply 🙂
My pleasure! Love to help.
it’s delicious food.
Thanks!
So nice to find this recipe. I love Mrs Chiang’s recipe from her Szechwan cookbook -Eggplant in the Style of Fish. I will give your version a try!! Thx.
Happy cooking, Lisa. I hope you will like my version too.