Maple Garden's Eggplant with Hot Garlic Sauce Recipe

This recipe is quick, easy, and you can substitute different vegetables and protein with good results.
I always triple, or quadruple the recipe as the sauce cooks down, and my family likes a lot of sauce.

Maple Garden's Eggplant with Hot Garlic Sauce Recipe
1  tsp.            Minced ginger
1  tsp.            Minced garlic
1  tsp.            Sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp.   Shoyu (soy sauce)
1  tsp.            White vinegar
1  tsp.            Minced fresh red chili pepper or 1/4 tsp. dried chili pepper flakes
1  tsp.            Cornstarch
1/2-3/4 lb.     Eggplant, peeled and cut into 1" long strips
1/2 c.             Pork, cut into strips
                      Oil for stir frying

In a small bowl, mix together ginger, garlic, shoyu, sugar, vinegar, chili pepper and cornstarch.  Set aside.  Heat oil in frying pan or wok until hot.  Add eggplant and fry until the pulp is brown, but not burnt..  Place eggplant between paper towels and lightly press down to extract excess oil.  Add pork to pan and fry about 1 minute, until pork is cooked.  Remove pork and drain oil.  Heat sauce in pan until near boiling, add eggplant and pork.  Mix together until thoroughly heated.  Serve hot with rice.

Note: I also make using chicken, shrimp (or together).  If you don't have eggplant, you can use other vegetables like red, green, yellow bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, celery, etc.