Eggplant can be a pretty unexciting vegetable.  Its not something you ever want to eat raw, since without cooking it can be stiff and bitter.  The seeds can also get into your teeth.  But eggplant has a truly wonderful property – it absorbs and enhances the flavors around it as it is being marinated, stuffed, roasted, grilled, pan fried or steamed.  In this Thai dish, the flavors of basil, chilies and fish sauce are really at their best in each succulent piece of eggplant.

Once again, this dish is actually very simple and quick to make.  This dish could have been vegetarian, but I love meat too much…

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
1) Japanese/ Chinese or Thai eggplant, sloppily quartered into 1/2″ squares.

2) 2-3 cloves of garlic chopped coarsely
3) 1/3 lb of ground pork
4) 2 Tbsp of Fish Sauce
5) A touch of soy sauce
6) 1 bunch of Basil, leaves only, chopped coarsely
7) 1 Tbsp of Sugar
8) 1 Tbsp of Vegetable Oil
9) Chilis (optional)

Instructions: In order to save time, I don’t prepare my ingredients ahead of time.  Here’s a way to do ingredient prep at the same time as cooking.

1) Set stove on high and heat the oil. As it heats, chop up the garlic.
2) Toss the garlic in and then the ground pork
3) Add soy sauce and then turn the heat to medium high. Break up the ground pork with a wooden spoon or spatula.
4) As the pork browns, start quartering the eggplant into bite size pieces. 1-2″ strips of eggplant are also ok.
5) By now the meat should be browned. Add the eggplant, fish sauce, sugar, and chilis and cover. Reduce the heat to medium and let steam cook. I may add a bit of white wine or water here to speed up the process and prevent burning.
6) Pluck basil off stems and rinse. The more basil, the better. I only had 1/2 a bunch though.

7) Chop the basil coarsely and add to the eggplant. Stir in. Let the dish sit under cover for about 5 minutes, or until the eggplant is soft.
8) Eat with Jasmine Rice.