Are eggplants showing up in your local markets yet? They are here, and guest author Garrett has tossed together a classic Chinese dish using long and tender Asian eggplants from the farmers market. The actual name for this dish in Sichuan cuisine oddly translates to “Fish-Fragrant” Eggplant. Confusing, as this dish has no fish anywhere in it. You see, in Sichuan cuisine there are 23 complex flavors. These range from red-oil flavor, hot and sour flavor, lychee flavor, to strange flavor, and many others. Fish-Fragrant is one of the most celebrated. Fish-Fragrant is a combination of salty, sweet, sour, and spicy tastes that come from ginger, garlic, scallions and fermented or pickled chilies. It is so named because these flavors are often used to enhance fish. Often times in earlier Chinese history, if home cooks were unable to procure fresh fish for meals, they had to make do with older fish that might have had too intense of a fishy taste. The ingredients and tastes that make up the fish-fragrant flavor are all strong and could cover the odors of seafood that wasn’t the most fresh. And these days many people can get perfectly fresh fish. However, fish-fragrant flavor is still quite popular. This is especially true in the Sichuan region of China where the native cuisine is known for being molten hot. We’ve toned the heat of this dish down considerably for the everyday non-Sichuan eater as the original recipe is like swallowing lava. You can practically feel it turn your organs to ash from the inside out. Even if you fancy yourself a talented fire-eater, use only a small amount of the chili bean paste your first try as it is incredibly spicy.

Happy cooking! and hope you enjoyed this video.

Please Kindly Subscribe and Follow my Gourmet CookAtHome channel:
YouTube’s link: https://www.youtube.com/@kevinhuang1972
Twitter’s link: https://twitter.com/@kevinhuang1972
Pinterest’s link: https://www.pinterest.com/KevinHuang1972/
Facebook’s link: https://www.facebook.com/orisoltwn?ref=tn_tnmn
Instagram’s link: https://www.instagram.com/kevinhuang1972

source