Stir Fry Chili Mince Pork with Eggplant

My grandmother loves to cook fried chili eggplant. I never dare to even try them. They looked so withered and overcooked, it is just like a meal for a toothless person. And all those sparkly oil looked like that they have been immersed and absorbed into the eggplant. Once you bite on them, your mouth would be filled with an overflow amount of fried oil. That reason always made me think twice for tasting them.

When I moved to Australia, I practically have to do all my chores and other things by myself, including cooking my own meal, which I never done before back in my country. Because we have so many maids in Indonesia, I just feel like entering the kitchen would make the space narrower. Even if I tried to help the fun things in the kitchen, like making cookies, my grandmother and her little helpers would chase me a way. I guessed I made their work more complicated and difficult than it should be.

Anyway, back to my story. When I arrived in Australia, I realized that I have to start learning to cook a decent meal so I wouldn’t have to buy those expensive take away. My flatmates love to cook so this was my chance to learn and practice my cooking skills. One night, we cooked stir fry eggplant with plum sauce. It was actually not as bad as I thought it should be. I felt so guilty for ignoring my grandma’s fried chili eggplant that when I went back to Indonesia the year after that I ate hers and it was good. I had so many wide varieties of meals back in Indonesia and it has made me to become so picky in what should enter my mouth.

Here is my tip before you start cooking your eggplant dish, that is to not forget to sprinkle generous amount of salt on to the eggplant, and make sure they are all well coated with salt. Or otherwise your eggplant will suck up all the oil or juice dry. I did fried my eggplant with generous amount of oil before, and it sucked up all the oil like they were been in a long thirst strike. Now, all I do is just put a little amount of oil in the pan, and let them cook until really tender and change color.

Ingredients

• 200 gr mince pork
• 1 medium size of purple eggplant
• 2 chilies, diced
• 1 tomato, wedged
• 1 tbsp of mince garlic
• 1 shallot, diced
• 1 tbsp of sambal oelek/cobek/terasi or pureed chilli
• 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
• oil for stir frying
• sugar, salt, and pepper to taste