Recipe：steamed eggplant

When the Rainy season arrives, it's also right after the end of the Chinese New Year. After the feasting during the New Year, there's a natural desire to eat something lighter, not because of dieting or any other reason. Often, eating according to the body's true needs feels very comfortable, just like how we used to eat when we were kids.

Around this time, I often make a very delicious dish for dinner: eggplant, steamed and then served as a salad.

It sounds simple and it's simple to make too. Once it's ready, it can be really tasty, and the key is that it's also very low in calories.

Eggplant is a vegetable with a very special texture, round and purple, feeling like a chubby baby when held, indescribably cute. Eggplants contain a lot of water, so in restaurants, before frying eggplants, they often salt them first to draw out water before frying or sautéing.

The Elders always say that eggplant should be cooked with oil because it absorbs a lot of oil, due to its many internal pores, like a sponge, which makes it particularly flavorful. This taste is largely due to the oil. If you sauté eggplant without oil, it comes out dry and tough.

As a child, I loved eating braised eggplant with rice; I remember the braised eggplant was tied together with a thick sauce, and mixed with rice, I found the eggplant tastier than meat. But later, for weight management reasons, I avoided eggplant for a long time. Until I discovered how delicious steamed eggplant can be.

To make a good steamed eggplant, it all starts with the cut. Generally, I peel the eggplant, remove the ends, and then place it whole in a dish, without slicing it.

It took me a while to understand that letting food break apart according to its own texture yields the best taste. Like when you boil crushed ginger instead of sliced, the flavor is stronger. Once the eggplant is steamed, it can be easily torn apart with chopsticks, revealing a texture that perfectly matches the internal arrangement of the fibers, making it easier for flavors to be absorbed. And when you tear the eggplant with chopsticks, steam escapes, giving a warm, familiar feeling.

Eggplant needs about 15 minutes of steaming. During this time, we can prepare the sauce. I have a recipe: use Japanese grilled fish soy sauce or light soy sauce, add a bit of warm water, a bit of chili oil, a bit of fragrant vinegar, and a few drops of sesame oil. Mix it all in a bowl. If you want a more interesting taste, you can add a few drops of pepper oil. It's important to add water to the sauce, otherwise, it will be too salty.

Then, chop some cilantro, and if you like garlic, prepare some garlic paste.

When the eggplant is ready, before tearing it with chopsticks, pour the sauce over it, spoonful by spoonful. Then add the cilantro. Finally, sprinkle with white sesame for a delicate presentation.

When eating, tear the eggplant flesh with chopsticks. The sauce penetrates every fiber of the eggplant, and taking a big bite, you'll feel the sweetness and freshness of the eggplant, its tender and smooth texture wrapped in a rich sauce, creating a subtle balance. Steamed eggplant is very low in calories, so I usually eat two large eggplants for dinner, with some soy milk, or one eggplant with clear porridge, which feels very comforting. The next day, I feel great.

This dish was also a cold dish we almost ate daily in the summer when I was a child. My family would sometimes put the eggplant in the refrigerator to make it cooler. Later, I found that warm eggplant was also delicious, softer and more comforting for the body.

The ideal is to savor this dish attentively, inside a house where it's raining outside. Accompanied by hot tea and clear porridge, eating until you sweat lightly, feeling totally relaxed. Sometimes, happiness doesn't come from a table full of dishes, but from the simplicity and satisfaction.