Stuffed Spicy Dried Eggplant

Stuffed Spicy Dried Eggplant

　　It combines a variety of flavors—fragrant, spicy, sweet, and salty—with a texture that is both chewy and soft. Once tasted, it’s unforgettable, leaving you craving more.

Preparation method: Select eggplants, wash and remove stems. Fill a pot with two-thirds water, bring to a boil, then add the washed and stemmed eggplants. Boil for 2–3 minutes until the eggplants change color and become soft. Remove them, cut them open and flatten, then dry them in the sun for about 6–8 hours. Take 20 kilograms of glutinous rice to make sweet rice wine, and wash the rest of the glutinous rice, then cook it into sticky rice. Mix it with the sweet rice wine to form a paste-like consistency, making sure it is thick but without any visible rice grains. Wash and chop dried chili peppers and garlic into very fine pieces, then mix them with white sugar, monosodium glutamate, and salt, and pour everything into the filling mixture, stirring evenly. Place 2–3 cm thick filling between two pieces of eggplant skin, then dry them in the sun for 8–10 hours. Steam the sun-dried stuffed eggplant blanks in a steamer over boiling water for about 2 hours, then turn off the heat and leave them in the steamer overnight. The next morning, take them out and dry them in the sun for 8–10 hours. Repeat this process three times, ensuring that during the last drying the stuffed eggplants have a moisture content of around 15%. Sort and grade the stuffed dried eggplants, then slice them into 1 cm wide strips. Vacuum-pack them in non-toxic plastic film bags, and store at room temperature for 15 days. Products with no bloating or broken packaging are considered qualified.