Recipes

Stir-fried Eggplant with Chopped Pork

Pad Makua Yao Moo Sap

Ground pork and long green eggplant stir-fried with basil and pea eggplant

Prep

5 min

Cook

7 min

Serves

4

Heat

mild

This is a simple, everyday kind of stir-fry: ground pork browned hard in a little garlic and oil, seasoned with oyster sauce until it turns thick and sticky, then simmered with chunks of long green eggplant under a lid until soft. Crunchy pea eggplant and sliced chili go in at the very end for just a minute, so they keep some bite against the softened eggplant and meat. A handful of Thai sweet basil stirred in off the heat rounds it out with its distinct licorice-like flavor.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2-3 Long green eggplant (cut into 1-inch pieces, held in salted water)
• 3/4-1 lb Ground pork loin
• 1 1/3 cups Thai sweet basil (leaves and flower tops)
• 3 Thai long chilies (sliced diagonally)
• 2/3 cup Pea eggplants (stems and hulls removed)
• 3-4 Garlic, large cloves (finely chopped)
• 1 1/3 tablespoons Oyster sauce
• 2 3/4 teaspoons Light soy sauce
• 1 1/4 teaspoons Sugar
• 1 1/3 tablespoons Vegetable oil

Directions

1. Cut the eggplant into 1-inch pieces and place in a bowl of salted water to keep it from browning while you prep the rest. Pull the stems and hulls from the pea eggplants, slice the chilies diagonally, and finely chop the garlic. Pick the basil leaves and flower tops.
2. Heat the oil in a wok over low heat and fry the garlic for a few seconds until fragrant.
3. Add the ground pork, raise the heat to high, and fry until well browned.
4. Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. Stir well and continue frying until thick and sticky, until the edges of the pan look nearly dry. Add a splash of water and stir to deglaze, building a bit of sauce into the meat.
5. Drain the eggplant and add it to the pan. Stir well, reduce the heat to medium, cover, and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a little water as needed to keep some sauce in the pan.
6. Add the sliced chili and pea eggplants. Stir in, cover, and cook for about a minute, just until barely cooked through.
7. Turn off the heat, add the basil, and stir lightly, letting it wilt in the residual heat.
8. Serve with steamed rice as a one-dish meal, or on a platter alongside other dishes. Garnish with a few extra basil tops.

Notes

Let the pan go nearly dry before deglazing with a splash of water — that browned layer on the pan is where a lot of the dish's savory depth comes from.

Substitutions

Ground beef or chicken can replace the pork with no other changes. Purple Japanese eggplant works well if long green eggplant isn't available, and pea eggplant can simply be left out if you can't find it.