Name: Yuxiang Eggplant (Fish-Fragrant Eggplant)
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 2 Eggplants; 80 g Ground pork; 3 cloves Garlic; 1 tbsp Ginger; 1 Green onion; 1 tbsp Doubanjiang; 4 tbsp Cooking oil; 1 tbsp Cornstarch slurry; 1 tbsp Soy sauce; 1 tbsp Black vinegar (or vinegar); 1 tbsp Sugar; 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine; 4 tbsp Water

Ingredients

2servings

Eggplants · ~400g, cut into batons2
Ground pork · optional80 g
Garlic · minced3 cloves
Ginger · minced1 tbsp
Green onion · sliced1
Doubanjiang · spicy bean paste1 tbsp
Cooking oil4 tbsp
Cornstarch slurry · starch + water, to finish1 tbsp
Yuxiang sauce
Soy sauce1 tbsp
Black vinegar (or vinegar)1 tbsp
Sugar1 tbsp
Shaoxing wine1 tbsp
Water4 tbsp

Steps

Cut the eggplant into batons, soak in salted water 5 minutes, and pat dry (so it absorbs less oil). Mix the sauce ingredients ahead.
⏲ 5 min
Heat plenty of oil and fry the eggplant until golden and soft, then remove (or microwave it first to use less oil).
⏲ 6 min
In the remaining oil, cook the ground pork, then add the doubanjiang and fry until the oil turns red.
⏲ 3 min
Add the garlic, ginger, and white parts of the green onion and fry until fragrant.
⏲ 1 min
Pour in the mixed yuxiang sauce, bring to a simmer, and return the eggplant to coat.
⏲ 2 min
Thicken with the cornstarch slurry and stir in the green onion tops. Serve with rice.
⏲ 1 min

Variations

Vegetarian: Skip the pork; use shiitake or tofu.
Milder: Less doubanjiang and a touch of chili oil.
No deep-fry: Microwave or air-fry the eggplant to cut the oil.
Chicken/shrimp: Swap the pork for another protein.

Tips

Soak the eggplant in salted water briefly so it drinks less oil.
Fry the doubanjiang in oil to release its red color and aroma — this is key.
'Yuxiang' has no fish — it's the garlic-ginger-scallion + sweet-sour-salty profile.
Premix the sauce and add it all at once for even seasoning.
Don't over-fry the eggplant — finish it in the sauce.

More detail and the reasons why (4)

Why aubergine is salted before it is fried. Ratatouille and moussaka salt it too. What it does: aubergine flesh is a sponge of large gas-filled cells, salting collapses part of that structure by osmosis and frying collapses the rest — and past that point the slices stop absorbing oil and start releasing it. So the brief soak below is not a small economy. It is the line between a vegetable that drinks the pan dry and one that hands the oil back.
Which is why the starch goes into the sauce at the end and never onto the aubergine. A dish whose main ingredient gives oil back needs a sauce that can carry it, and thickening a sauce is exact about how: starch goes into an equal volume of cold water first, because dry starch tipped into a hot pan gelatinises on the outside and seals dry powder inside a lump, and once in it must come to a boil at least once — 60 to 75°C is where it swells. The last step below is both of those. Across the aubergine family, China coats it in a starch-thickened sauce, Provence stews it together, and Sicily's caponata fries it apart and glazes it.
Premixing the sauce is a clock, not a convenience. Fermented pastes pins doubanjiang's window at low heat, thirty seconds to a minute, until the colour deepens slightly and the smell lifts — and says that over high heat the window does not exist (huiguorou runs the same order). After it, the garlic, ginger and spring onion get twenty to thirty seconds. There is no point in that sequence at which you can be measuring soy and vinegar, so the sauce is built while nothing is on the heat.
The name is a borrowed seasoning, not a missing ingredient. Yuxiang (魚香) is the flavour Sichuan built for fish — pickled chilli, garlic, ginger, spring onion and the sweet-sour-salty balance — lifted off the fish and put on something else. Which is why the same profile turns up on pork slivers and on an aubergine with nothing from the sea in the pan. The black vinegar is the axis it shares with pai huang gua and dan dan noodles.

The basics behind this dish

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