hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to deconstructing Chinese American classics with a shot at yet another item from the PF Chang’s menu, which is their stir fried Chinese eggplant. For those not familiar in this series, we have been taking menu items from iconically Americanized cuisine like PF Chang’s or Panda Express, then taking apart these recipes, and reassembling them through the lens of more traditional Chinese wok cooking. Not too long ago, we took a look at PF Chang’s Mongolian Beef, their Singapore Chicken, and a few others as well. 

We’re going making use of some Chinese eggplant today, which is most notably longer and thinner than your more common globe eggplant found here in the states. They also have fewer seeds which makes them a little less bitter, and generally more appropriate for flash cooking like we do in a wok fry. Then we’ll also be pairing this with a “sweet chili soy glaze” as PF Chang’s describes it, which by my best assumption is referring to the use of sweet chili sauce for a sweet and spicy glaze. Then finally rounding this all out, i’m going to be making two creative additions to help bring this to life with some spicy black bean paste and Thai chiles, both of which should add some nice depth of flavor, umami, and complex heat that I personally think is absent in the PF Chang’s version of this dish. Hope you try it. 

The recipe will be out on December 31st, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, bookmark the stream here, and pick up the ingredients below if you want to follow along and cook dinner with me.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cloves garlic

• 1 inch (about 1 tbsp) ginger

• 3 green onions

• 2 medium Chinese eggplants

• 4-6 Thai chiles

• corn starch slurry (2 tbsp corn starch + water)

• peanut oil

• water

INGREDIENTS (sauce)

• 4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)

• 2 tbsp sweet chile sauce

• 1 tbsp sesame oil

• 2 tbsp shaoxing wine

• 2 tbsp oyster sauce

• 1 tbsp spicy black bean paste