American English Teacher's Red Cooked Eggplant December 17

Part of the attraction of 5 months in China is the opportunity to try the many regional cooking styles. This involves eating out. Sadly, your willingness to try new things does backfire from time to time. This week I've been suffering the after effects of trying spicy fish head soup with the wretched stinky tofu that seems to appear on everything, whether or not you ask for it. I never do. Sadly, I didn't do the ordering so had no time to say: gaahh! Invariably I get an upset stomach whenever I have to deal with that delicacy. So, after you get over your intestines deciding to tie themselves into a knot, you go back to your kitchen where you can trust the cleanliness.
I go off meat whenever I get punched in the gut like this. So, here's a great vegan dish: cumin crusted stir fried eggplant with onion, tomato, red chilli, garlic and ginger. The sauce is Anhui's finest soy and the garnish is mung sprouts, which I grow on my windowsill. Tonight it's plain white rice and hot water.
It turned out particularly well because I decided to leach out some of the eggplant's liquid with salt. At home I'd leave the eggplant unpeeled and bake it in the oven. Eggplant acts like a sponge when it's cooked in oil, and this is my usual solution. However, Chinese kitchens don't have ovens. Also, you are exposing a lot more surface area to oil because in China you must peel and thoroughly cook all vegetables. The "organic" gardening practices here involve raw human waste. I'm used to it now, but it was a bit of a shock at first. Compost bins are foreign here. They'd work great here in Tongling's humid climate. But I'm not sure it's an option. China has been growing food like this for millennia. There is little time to wait due because the population is large and hungry. So, you adapt.