Eggplant stuffed with minced pork is one of favourite dishes loved by foodies. — Photo fptshop.com.vn

Thanh Hà

Eggplant, also known as aubergine, is not only a very healthy fruit, but it is also a staple ingredient in many amazing dishes.

Many tasty dishes can be prepared, such as grilled eggplant with pork fat and green onion, braised eggplant, fried eggplant with minced garlic, eggplant cooked with tofu and minced pork, fermented fish hotpot with eggplant, minced pork stuffed in eggplant, and eggplant salad.

Master Chef Phạm Tuấn Hải told Việt Nam News that local families often cook these dishes for their great taste, but also because the recipes are hearty and authentic. The most popular is eggplant perilla soup, locally known as cà tím bung. The ingredients for the dish include three parts of eggplant, fermented rice (three tablespoons), pork belly (300g), grilled tofu pieces, tomato, lemon, green onion, shallot, purple perilla, minced garlic, cooking oil, broth mix, spices and fish sauce. How to cook the dish:

Cut the eggplants into slices and soak them in lemon juice water for 10 minutes. Cut up the tomato, green onion, perilla, shallot and mince the garlic and grill the tofu before cutting it into square pieces.

Soak the pork belly in lightly salted water, then cut it into thin slices about one centimetre thick each. Fry it with the shallot for five minutes until fragrant, then fry the eggplant pieces with the minced garlic.

Pour one litre of water into a pot, put all the ingredients including the tofu in, add spices and boil it until it is cooked before adding in the tomato and cooking it again so that everything is well done.

Eggplant cooked with tofu and pork belly, locally known as cà tím bung, is one of the most popular eggplant dishes. Photo fptshop.com.vn

The dish is a complete balance of flavours, a perfect combination of the pork, eggplants and other ingredients, said Hải, adding that his children particularly like deep-fried eggplant.

Deep-fried eggplant is very easy to cook, said Hải.

Ingredients include eggplant, egg, deep-fried powder, cooking oil, salt, pepper and chilli juice.

The first step is to break two eggs into a bowl with a little pepper and whisk them well, then add deep-fried powder and stir until it becomes a wet dough, said Hải.

Braised eggplant is more enjoyable when eaten with hot rice. Photo fptshop.com.vn

Heat cooking oil in a pan, dip each eggplant piece into the wet dough, then quickly transfer it to the frying pan and cook until golden.

“The dish is crispy with buttery taste. It is more enjoyable when eaten with roasted peanut and fish sauce mixed from sugar, lemon, chilli and others,” he said.

Hải added that eggplant with minced pork stuffing is also a popular dish of Vietnamese.

Ingredients are eggplant, minced pork, green onion, shallot, carrot, wood ears, fish sauce, cooking oil, salt, broth mix and peppers.

How to cook the dish:

Vertically cut the eggplant into two parts, scoop out the inner parts and soak the two halves in lightly salted water.

All the other ingredients are minced and mixed well before being spooned back into the split eggplant, then steamed for 30 minutes.

Eggplant is nutritious and a very good ingredient to cook into many amazing dishes. Photo congcutot.vn

How to make the sauce:

Mix the green onion, salt and sugar well and put hot cooking oil into the blended ingredients then pour this sauce on the steamed eggplant minced pork stuffing.

“The dish is enjoyable because it is rich and soft and sweet from the fragrance from all the mixed ingredients,” said Hải.

In addition, eggplant cooked with eels is also a favourite of many foodies because eel meat is so rich in terms of nutrition.

The dish is sweet from the eggplant and eel meat, buttery from the fats and fragrant from galangal root, turmeric and light spicy from chilli. It can be eaten with rice for vermicelli.

Herbalist Trần Văn Minh from Bắc Giang province said apart from using it in daily meals, eggplant is also a herbal medicine that had been used for thousands of years.

Remedies made from eggplant can treat high blood pressure, reduce triglycerides, improve eye, skin and hair health, and help prevent cancer and aid weight loss, said Minh.

He added a warning, saying that although eggplant is nutritious, it contains solanine, and nicotine, which are toxic and could be harmful to small children and patients who are weak. Those with asthma, in particular, should eat it less to avoid poisoning. VNS