A popular vegan dish from Northern China –DiSanXian (地三鲜) made with the three most common vegetables in the Chinese daily market: potato, eggplants, and green peppers. This dish gives a slightly crispy potato texture, soft eggplant, and fresh green peppers.
What’s Di San Xian
Di San Xian (地三鲜) literally can be translated as the three treasures of the earth. In daily cooking, we are more likely to use seasonal and local fresh ingredients. The most famous version is with potatoes, eggplants, and green peppers. But they are never dull! You can combine some of them together and season them with different flavors.
The name Di San xian literally translates to “three fresh ingredients”, because all the ingredients are grown on the earth. Traditionally, the ingredients are deep-fried and then coated with a savory sauce. But we will use a shallow frying process which takes longer time and less oil.
How does it taste like
Basically, this dish has a sweet, garlicky, and savory taste. So is typically served with steamed white rice or noodles. The sauce will combine well with the staple food and makes it even better.
Make eggplant easier to cook
Sometimes we feel eggplant is quite hard to cook because it will absorb the oil at the first and make the food become greasy. Here is a tip about how to solve this.
- Soak the eggplants in salty water for around 15 minutes. The water absorbed can help to fasten the cooking process.
- Coat them with cornstarch, this helps to hold the shape of the eggplants.
How to cut the potatoes
You can choose to cut the potatoes either into slices or larger chunks. However, the treatment of the two might be slightly different. If you cut the potato into slices, you can use fry or sautee. However, for larger chunks, we recommend boiling them first and then frying them until a little bite crispy on the surface.
📖Steps
Soak the eggplants in slightly salted water for 15 minutes. Drain and then coat evenly with a thin layer of cornstarch. The eggplants can be softened even with a small amount of water. Drain completely.
In a small bowl, mix all of the stir-frying sauce together.
Heat oil in a wok (recommend adding more oil to fasten the process, do not worry, we will remove extra oil later) to form a 3 cm oil layer.
Place boiled potatoes in and fry until well cooked. Then place the eggplant in and gently fry during the process until well cooked.
Also, fry green pepper for 10 seconds.
Pour extra oil out and leave around ½ tablespoon of cooking oil in. Fry green onion white and garlic until aromatic. Place the stir-fry sauce in.
Wait for a while until boiling. Place potato, green pepper, and eggplants in. Fry until each piece is well coated.
Serve hot with steamed rice.
Other Chinese Eggplants to try
Eggplant is my favorite ingredient for my daily cooking. Following are some of the most delicious eggplant dishes you must have a try.
Chinese Eggplants with Garlic Sauce
Chinese Eggplants with Minced Pork
Chinese Steamed Eggplant Recipe
Chinese Yu Xiang Eggplant Recipe
Di San Xian—Chinese Sautéed Potato Eggplants and Green Peppers
Ingredients
- 2 long eggplants , cut into 2cm chunks
- 1/4 cup cornstarch for coating
- 1 potatoes , cut into thick slices or chunks
- 1 green pepper , cut into small pieces
- 1 green onion , white part only, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves , chopped
- oil for frying
Stir-frying sauce
- 2 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1/4 tsp. sugar
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tbsp. dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp. cornstarch
- 3 tbsp. water
Instructions
- Soak the eggplants in slightly salted water for 15 minutes. Drain completely and then coat evenly with a thin layer of cornstarch.
- In a small bowl, mix all of the stir-frying sauce together.
- If you cut potatoes in chunks, then cook the chunks in boiling water for around 4-5 minutes. Transfer out and drain.
- Heat oil in wok (recommend adding more oil to fasten the process, do not worry, we will remove extra oil later) to form a 3 cm oil layer.
- Place potatoes in and fry until the surface becomes slightly crispy. Then place the eggplant in and gently fry during the process until well cooked. Fry green pepper for 10 seconds.
- Pour extra oil out and leave around 1/2 tablespoon of cooking oil in. Fry green onion and garlic until aromatic. Place the stir fry sauce in. Wait for a while until boiling. Place potato, green pepper and eggplants in. Fry until each piece is well coated.
- Serve hot with steamed rice.
Notes
Traditionally, this dish is deep-fried. If you are watching out the daily oil intake, you can fry all the ingredients with less oil. But the later method requires more time and patience.
Nutrition
It’s nice to see a potato dish in Chinese cuisine! I rarely see it and I love potato dishes… 🙂 This dish has all of my favorite veggies in it too! 🙂
Thanks Nami. After seeing this comment, I realize it is the truth. Chinese people do not add potatoes as frequently in daily cooking. But we love them too!
I love quick and easy Asian veggie dishes like this so I definitely need to try the recipe out. Interesting use of potato too – I also don’t think they get utilized enough in Asian cuisine!
Hi Thalia,
It seems that potato is not high frequency ingredients in Asian food. However we really love potatoes. We stir fry potatoes, braise potato, make potato soup and Chinese style spiced potato cubes. They are quite yummy too!
Thank you for the recipe. I used to live in Shanghai and it used to be my favorite aubergine dish. I am going to cook this tonight!!!
You are the most welcome, Mohamad. And good luck!!
I love cooking can you post some of Chinese recipies please
Hi Jasmine,
Most of the recipes on China Sichuan Food are authentic Chinese recipes as I am based in China. Hope they can be helpful and inspirational. Happy cooking in the coming 2016.
Wow is amazing food, and I already have cook it 😀
Hi Elaine,
thanks for sharing these wonderful recipes! I tryed the Di San Xian and the Kung Pao Tofu today and it was a huge success! Xiexie and best regard from Göttingen (Germany),
Clemens
You are the most welcome, Clemens. I am so glad that it works for you too.
I love all of the vegetarian recipes you provide. Thank you for sharing them!
I am Indian, and like all Indians I love eggplant and potatoes. I made this recipe with the addition of onion and it is now a favorite. I will eat this weekly for the rest of my life.
Hi, keri
Thanks for your comments. Yes, this is also my favorite vegetarian recipe.
I ate this many times in China, in Qingdao, Beijing and Shanghai. From high-end restaurants to a small music pub with generally not-so-prime food in Qingdao….but this is relatively hard to do wrong.
The best was in Qingdao, if I’m not mistaken in a Dongbeiren outlet (3 floor megarestaurant with the most epic prtion sizes I have ever seen – it would put an American to shame).
However, most recipes do not contain ginger, although I definitely remembr ginger in it, and I also know that there is virtually no Chinese dish w/o that.
Ps: Other recipes also include shaoxing wine, 2 types of soy sauce and even rice vinegar in the sauce…I guess all Dongbei grannies have their “unique” version 🙂
Hi Rofa,
Yes, it is a popular dish across the country. Dishes from Dongbei are quite different from the southern and central China.
For cooking wine, it is mainly used to remove the odd taste from the meat in meat dishes. I do not apply it on vegetables.
Eggplant is easily one of my favourite veggies in the whole world ?. Don’t even get me started on potatoes, and green peppers go so well with them both ?. So, I was really excited when I found your recipe ?. I followed it to the T and it turned out amazing. The only thing I made differently was not deep frying the ? , the green peppers, and the ?. I stir fried them instead and the dish still tasted great ?. Thanks for sharing this recipe ???
Yes, stir-frying can work fine too. Thanks for the feedback, Sara. Enjoy the eggplant season.
A very tasty recipe and a great use for the eggplants I’ve got growing! Super simple and elegant.