Recipe: Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce

This year the first hard frost kind of took us a bit by surprise.  New England is a funny place to grow things, at least as an amateur who has never actually studied agriculture.  The first year we had our garden it flourished and it produced well into late October.  Last year, thanks to the cold summer and the astronomical amounts of rain, we got precisely one habanero pepper and two tomatoes.  We really expected this year to be the same.  After all, the spring was actually colder than last year, and soggier too.  We had tried to accommodate that by putting our plants out later in the year, once the weather was warmer, and starting them indoors in a sun room (with a grow lamp, thanks to the soggy weather!)  When we left for our August vacation, we thought it was all for naught.  None of our seedlings had grown in the slightest and we had actually started to talk about replacing the garden with a swingset. 

Then we got back from Pennsylvania.  In just ten days our plants had shot up and begun to fruit.  We enjoyed so many tomatoes we had to get people to come and do a pick-your-own kind of thing, and I'm still trying to come up with a plan for all those chili peppers.  The thing is, the frost came quickly this year, and early, and very very suddenly.  My husband harvested as much as he could get his hands on and left me to come up with ways of using things before they rotted. 

This is one recipe that I came up with to meet that challenge.  There aren't a lot of ingredients.  There's the eggplant, which needed to get used ASAP.  There's the black bean sauce, which was left over from the Squid in Black Bean Sauce recipe and was taking up space in the fridge.  Then there's the oils and the garlic.  That's pretty much it.  It's a very tasty treat, a little on the spicy side maybe but you don't have to choose black bean sauce with chiles in it. 

Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce (serves 4; approx. cost per serving not available)

3 long, thin eggplants (I'm guessing about 1 1/2 lb here), diced

1/4 cup water

4 tablespoons black bean sauce - I used black bean sauce with chiles, but there are other kinds available

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

1 teaspoon hot pepper sesame oil

8 cloves garlic, crushed

Equipment:

• Wok or frying pan

1. Heat the oils in the wok.
2. Add the garlic and stir-fry a few seconds, just until the garlic becomes fragrant.
3. Add the eggplant and saute until the eggplant is just beginning to change color.
4. Add the water and the black bean paste.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat.
5. Stir well to ensure that all of the eggplant gets some of the sauce and cook until the eggplant is tender. 
6. Serve.