Fish Fragrant Aubergine

Fish fragrant aubergine does not include fish. In fact, this dish contains nothing sea-adjacent at all.

Instead, this is a stir-fry that combines sweet, sour and salty flavours with a sticky sauce and silky aubergine. It also happens to satisfy that gluten free Chinese food itch without searching for a gluten free Chinese restaurant.

And if you’re reading this blog, you probably already know how difficult gluten free Chinese food can be!

Gluten-Free Fish Fragrant Aubergine

Ok so, there’s no fish in this recipe. Nor is there even anything that smells like it…. So why is it called ‘fish fragrant’, then?

Think of this more as a style of cooking than the name of the dish itself. Fish fragrant aubergine is effectively a Chinese eggplant recipe that calls for flavourings reminiscent of those used to cook fish in older Sichuan cuisine.

Those flavourings include garlic, ginger, sugar and black vinegar.

So, given that this dish includes (almost) all of those ingredients, we’re cooking the aubergine in a ‘fish fragrant’ style.

But, as you’ll probably have guessed, we’ll need to make one or two substitutions in order to make this one gluten-free.

Gluten Free Doubanjiang

I said this dish includes (almost) all of the standard fish-fragrant aubergine ingredients. And although we can make some easier substitutions, this is one the hardest one to get right.

Doubanjiang is a fermented broad bean paste that’s essential to the cuisine from this region of China. So necessary is this condiment to the food from this area that it has been referred to as the ‘heart and soul of Sichuan cooking’.

And if you’ve read my gluten free mapo tofu recipe, gluten free doubanjiang is a notoriously difficult ingredient to find. And so that’s why this recipe uses a non-authentic substitute – gochujang. 

This is a Korean fermented chilli paste. And to me, it brings an ideal sweetness and lightness that really works with the other flavours in this dish. It’s not a perfect one-to-one substitute, but it does get you quite close in my view.

What’s more, if you have a tub of it languishing in the fridge, then this is a gret opportunity to add a new dish to your repertoire of vegan gochujang recipes!

Skip down if you just want the recipe card, but as always, I’m going to walk you through a step by step guide to putting this dish together to help you understand each part of the process.

Fish Fragrant Aubergine – A Step By Step Guide

Step One : Soften the aubergine

This step is crucial if you want melt-in-the-mouth veg.

Aubergine is a difficult ingredient to work with. Not only does it suck up all the oil you give it, but it also tends to secrete it back into your dish later.

It’s also hard to soften quickly. Which is a problem – because soft and silky aubergine is exactly the texture we want.

Commonly in Chinese cooking, the ‘pass through oil’ method is used here. This is essentially deep frying the veg before using it in the stir fry. But deep frying is not something I ever want to do as a home cook. It’s messy and difficult to clean up.

You also have to store the oil when you’re done.

Instead, I like to roast my aubergines after soaking them in a brine first.

I cut them into strips and submerge them in salted water for about 20 minutes. Then drain them, dry them, and toss them in oil. After that, they go into the oven until they have softened.

I’ve tried a lot of methods for softening aubergine and this is by far my favourite for this dish. It saves me from deep frying or even pan frying in batches, which seems to take ages.

The salt water bath counterintuitively draws out some of the moisture, and then you can set and forget (to an extent) in the oven.

You can skip the soaking stage, but you’ll need to salt the aubergine first and then keep it in the oven for longer if you do. It’s no biggie, but the salt water is easy, so I say just do it.

Step Two: Make fish fragrant sauce and cornflour slurry

When it comes to putting fish fragrant aubergine together as a stir fry later, you’ll have to work fast. So having all of the ingredients together before you start is crucial.

With the aubergine cooking in the oven, this is the perfect time to make up your sauce, as well as the cornflour and water mixture we’ll use at the end.

Take a tablespoon of cornflour and mix it with a tablespoon of water and stir until it’s smoot and there are no lumps. Then set it aside for later.

A Note On Gluten Free Fish Fragrant Sauce

You can also make the fish-fragrant sauce now, too. Take your sugar, gluten free soy sauce (or tamari), and balsamic vinegar and mix together in a bowl. Stir to dissolve the sugar, and set aside again for later.

Normally you would also add Shaoxing wine here, too. But I’ve never found a version I could confirm to be gluten-free. I have used Chinese yellow wine in its place, such as Wangzhihe cooking wine, which lists no gluten-containing ingredients. Still, if you’re coeliac, you’re best to avoid it if you’re not sure.

But you still have a few options!

One is to substitute for a gluten-free rice wine for cooking. As a first port of call, mirin or sake could work. Mirin is usually a sweet wine, and not recommended as a Shaoxing wine substitute because of its sweetness. In this case, we’re adding sugar to the mix anyway, so it’s a better substitute.

Second is to go for a sherry. Again, a dry sherry is by far the best, but if you have a bottle of sweet sherry sitting at the back of the drinks cabinet, then it will work well, too. I have used it in the past.

Same deal as with the mirin: just bear in mind that by doing this, you’re adding more sweetness to the sauce. So reduce the sugar quantity accordingly.

The downside here is I can’t tell you by how much – that will depend on the sweetness of your alcohol of choice!

The final option is just to leave it out altogether. We’re adding acid in the form of vinegar anyway. Just move on and don’t worry about it.

Which brings me to the next substitition… black vinegar.

Similar to Shaoxing wine, Chinkiang vinegar – also known as Chinese black vinegar – is not normally a gluten free product. However it is possible to find it.

But if you can’t get it, don’t worry. A great one-to-one substitution is balsamic vinegar. In fact, it’s so good that in the recipe below I’ve only called for balsamic. It’s easy to find in the supermarket, and it’s usually gluten free, so I use it by default when making this recipe.

Just please don’t use the really expensive versions for this! A cheap balsamic will do the job well.

Step Three: Fry Garlic, Ginger and Spring Onion

The secret to great stir-fries is a great base of aromatic flavours. 

In this case, it’s garlic, ginger, and the white part of a spring onion (saving the green part for garnish at the end). Don’t skimp on the garlic, either – this is effectively a chinese eggplant with garlic sauce recipe.

Frying these up in the oil on a lower heat first infuses the whole dish with their aromatic flavours.

This is also a great building block for all sorts of Chinese recipes, including my mapo tofu recipe, and a good fried rice.

Step Four: Add chilli paste and aubergine

Once the oil is fragrant, crank up the heat and add the gochujang. Stir to combine until the oil is stained red. Then toss in the cooked aubergine.

After 20 – 30 minutes in the oven, the aubergine should be soft and silky, so it really just needs a minute to mingle with the aromatics and chilli paste at this stage.

Step Five: Add the sauce and a splash of water

Then it’s time for the sauce and a splash of water. If you have a wok with a lid, use it and simmer for around 5 minutes before thickening the sauce with the slurry.

Then serve with white rice. It also makes a great accompaniment to gluten free mapo tofu.

Step Six: How to thicken a gluten free stir fry sauce

If you’ve read this blog before, you’ll know I tend to use a lot of cornflour to thicken sauces, and this one is no different!

Many Chinese chefs – and western cooks conversant in Chinese cuisine – will tell you to opt for a potato starch slurry to thicken their stir-fry sauces instead. This is because potato starch thickens more quickly than cornflour. That means you’ll know more quickly if you’ve used the right amount!

But to me, cornflour does the job really well and also has the advantage of being an ingredient most people already have in their cupboards, so that’s the one I’m using. It works just as well – you just need to be a little bit more patient.

Make up your cornflour slurry and use one third of it first. Cook for ten seconds, stirring frequently, and then see how thick the sauce is. If it’s thick enough, stop there, if not add the second third and wait another ten seconds or so. Then decide if you need the final third. You may not.