Braised Eggplant with Ground Chicken 茄子のそぼろ煮

I am always looking for a new recipe especially using eggplants. This one also came from a  chef Kasahara’s 笠原 Youtube episode. Although the original recipe calls for ground pork, I happened to have ground chicken so I made it with eggplants and ground chicken. This turned out to be a good dish and the eggplant absorbed the flavors and almost tastes like meat.  I did not add a poached egg as suggested in the original recipe.

Ingredients:
2 Asian eggplants (long and slender), stem ends removed, peeled the skin in stripes, and cut into half inch rounds
1 1/2 tbs vegetable oil with a splash or dark sesame oil
200 grams ground chicken
2 scallions, finely sliced
1 tsp minced ginger
2 tbs x4 Japanese noodle sauce
2 tbs sake
2 tsp sugar
200 ml water

(hand torn perilla leaves as garnish if available)

Directions:

Add the 1 tbs oil to a frying pan on medium heat, cut side down brown both sides for about 5-7 minutes. remove from the pan and set aside

Add the remaining 1/2 tbs oil to the same pan and add the chicken and cook for few minutes until color changes and meat crumbles into small pieces, add the ginger and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant

Add. the sugar and cook for 1 minute until the surface of the meat becomes shiny (the original recipe calls for more sugar)

Add the sake, soy sauce or noodle sauce, water. Put back the eggplant and cook for 5-7 minutes until the liquid reduces to the point only a thin layer of the liquid remains, add the scallion and mix and shut the flame off

I thought this might be too sweet but the seasoning worked well. My wife really liked it. I will add this dish to my eggplant go-to recipe.