Chinese Eggplant Sambal

In my Asparagus Stir-Fry with Dried Shrimp post, I did mention on how we Malaysians are hooked on sambal:

“…our famous must-have condiment – sambal! When you blanch dried chilies and then grind it with some belacan (shrimp paste), you have with you sambal paste that be used in infinite possible ways. Ask any Malaysian and he/she would say that nothing can go wrong when it’s cooked with sambal paste!”

Here is yet another one of the infinite possible ways of using the sambal paste to make a delectable dish, this time around using Chinese Eggplants.

I have tried using all the different available types of eggplants: Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Indian and find them all to be wonderful. The Chinese eggplants though are naturally sweeter, to me. This somehow tends to give the spicy sambal a suitable balance.

Here, the eggplants are sliced up and then deep-fried. Separately, I sautée some sambal paste and then when it is completely cooked i.e. when the oil separates from the oil (the chili paste needs to be cooked thoroughly to prevent the chilies tasting raw), I add in the eggplant slices and gently coat them with the sambal.

A sambal-icious side dish!