Pork and eggplant stir fry

We love eggplants. We like them saucy, baked, as a dip, with eggs, with pasta, and even with fried rice. Eggplants are especially good in a stir fry the problem is to make sure that they cook at the same time as the other ingredients so they don’t end up either undercooked or soggy. I think I found the solution cooking the eggplants separately and tossing them with the rest of the stir-fry ingredients during the last minute of cooking. And that was how I did it when I cooked this pork and eggplant stir-fried dish. The eggplants were deep-fried very, very quickly then set aside. The rest of the ingredients were then stir-fried and, just before adding the sauce, the eggplant wedges went back into the wok. The sauce was poured in, everything was quickly stirred and tossed, and the dish was complete.

Put the pork slices in a bowl. Add the soy sauce, pepper, and starch. Mix well. Set aside.

Heat the cooking oil in a wok. When smoking, dump the eggplants and cook just until the edges start to brown. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Set aside. The eggplants will be a bit undercooked at this point but they will continue cooking in the residual heat. Pour off the cooking oil until only about four tablespoonfuls remain. Reheat to the smoking point. Add the pork, stirring to separate them. Cook over very high heat until the pork pieces brown and start to form a crust along the edges.

Add the chopped onion, minced garlic, and grated ginger. Stir. Throw in the carrot slices. Continue stir-frying for about half a minute.
Return the eggplants to the wok. In a bowl, stir together all the ingredients for the sauce. Pour into the wok and stir lightly. Bring to a boil and cook until the sauce thickens and is no longer cloudy about 30 to 40 seconds. Turn off the heat, and tip the contents of the wok onto a serving platter. Garnish with finely sliced onion leaves and serve at once.

Pork Stroganoff

If beef is too expensive, or if good quality beef is hard to find, or if you just prefer pork over beef, you can transform a traditional beef dish into a pork delight. Beef stroganoff is cooked with or without onions, with or without mushrooms, and with or without tomato paste. I cooked my pork stroganoff with onions and mushrooms. Chopped tomatoes were substituted for tomato paste because I don’t use tomato paste anymore. Pardon the messy dining table. We’re still not done with the Christmas decorating and a lot of the stuff that still needs to be put up is on the dining table. We expect to clear the table completely before the weekend.