Stuffing Chinese eggplants

Recently, the availability of a meat grinder has opened up many new doors to ground meat dishes. Here is one with my very lean pork meat. I use a large piece of pork shoulder, but trim off all the fat before grinding. The meat is not all together lean because of the cut. But it's reasonably good. When pork is without much fat, something else is needed to provide the stickiness needed for making meatballs and stuffings. I like to use a variation of cornstarch, tapioca and glutinous rice flour. They provide various form of stickiness. I particularly like to use the glutinous rice flour for meatballs. This time, I am also using it for the stuffed eggplants.

Recipe: Stuffed Chinese eggplants

Ingredients:
- 2 medium Chinese eggplants
- 4 oz ground pork (lean)
- 1/2 tp garlic powder
- 1/4 tp salt
- 1/2 tp sugar
- dash of chili powder
- 2 tp marjoram flakes
- 3 TB buttermilk
- 2 TB glutinous rice flour
- 1 tp oil
- 1 cube furu

Procedure:
1. Cut eggplants lengthwise into halves. Cut out a long cavity in each half.
2. Mix the pork, garlic powder, salt, sugar, chili powder marjoram flakes and buttermilk. Stir well in one direction. When it has become sticky, add the glutinous rice flour. Continue to stir for 1-2 minutes. Then add oil and allow to rest for 5 minutes.
3. Stuff each half of the eggplants with filling. Place in a baking pan coated with oil. Cover pan loosely with foil. Bake in middle rack at 350F until cooked (about 20-30 minutes).
4. Then remove foil. Turn oven to broil at 425F. Place pan on top rack closest to the heating element. Broil for 5 minutes or until top is golden.
5. Beat 1 cube of furu into a paste and serve as a dip with the eggplants.

In one of my previous experiments, I was running out of yogurt while making yogurt chicken. So I made a sauce using buttermilk instead. I was amazed at the interesting flavor that buttermilk brought to the dish. So in this dish, I added buttermilk to the filling. It's nice. I serve it with a cube of furu.