I needed to use up half an eggplant and I had half a pound of ground chicken in the freezer. Stir fries are highly versatile and a great way to use up ingredients! You could easily substitute ground pork or ground beef, and any kind of vegetable you happen you have in your fridge. Stir fries also cook quickly, so they’re a great busy-weeknight meal.
Yes, there is such a thing as Chinese eggplant, but I didn’t have any of that. I had half an eggplant from WalMart, and it came out fine.
I used pre-cooked pancit noodles from Catalina’s Asian Market in Ledyard. A lot of Asian egg noodles contain too much sodium. If you can’t find suitable egg noodles, spaghetti will work fine — just use 4 ounces of dry spaghetti in this recipe.
A few notes on Chinese pantry ingredients:
- Shaoxing wine is key to making a lot of Chinese food taste “legit,” but dry sherry, or any other rice wine will make a good substitute. Find Shaoxing wine in your local Asian supermarket.
- Low-sodium soy sauce is always the heart-healthy choice.
- Dark soy sauce is more syrupy and molasses-y than regular soy sauce. Use it sparingly. Find it in your local Asian grocery store with all the other soy sauces.
- Most supermarkets carry sesame oil in the “Asian” section.
- Your local Asian grocery store probably sells some kind of egg noodles; many have a bit too much sodium and need to be cooked. I found these already-cooked Filipino pancit noodles at Catalina’s Asian Market in Ledyard — Catalina’s always seems to have these in stock.
- Spaghetti also works fine. Use 4 ounces of uncooked spaghetti in place of the egg noodles.
Eggplant, Chicken & Noodle Stir Fry
Ingredients
Sauce Ingredients
- ½ cup water
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- 2 garlic cloves (minced)
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing Wine (or dry sherry wine)
- ½ tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- ½ teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1 pinch ground black pepper
Stir Fry Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon canola oil (or other neutral-tasting oil)
- ½ eggplant (sliced and chipped into 1-inch pieces)
- 8 ounces lean ground chicken
- 2 scallions, white and green parts separated (chopped)
- 2 garlic cloves (minced)
- 2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
- 10 ounces pre-cooked egg noodles
Instructions
- Heat ½ cup water and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir until the sugar fully dissolves.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the rest of the sauce ingredients. Set the sauce aside.
- Heat 1 teaspoon of canola oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chopped eggplant pieces to the skillet, put the lid on, and turn the heat down to "medium low". Let the eggplant sit there and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring the eggplant occasionally. You want the eggplant to get super-browned up, even a little bit charred.
- While the eggplant is cooking, prep the noodles. I used fresh pancit noodles from the local Asian grocery store, and all I needed to do was run them under hot water until the noodles loosened up. (You may need to boil a pot of water and use boiling water to loosen the noodles if hot tap water from the faucet doesn't work.)
- When the noodles are soft and separated from one another, set them aside.
- When the eggplant is super soft and brown, transfer it to a plate.
- In the same skillet, stir-fry the ground chicken, the remaining 2 cloves of minced garlic, the white parts of the scallions and the 2 teaspoons of grated ginger root over medium heat. You'll want the chicken to brown up a bit, so don't stir it constantly. Leave it alone for a while to develop that brown sear on the bottom.
- When the chicken is no longer pink, add the sauce, the green parts of the chopped scallions, and the cooked eggplant back to the skillet. Stir-fry for 1 minute.
- Add the noodles and toss until the noodles are fully coated with the sauce.
