Hakka Chinese home-cooking in Calcutta, feat. Jessie Yung—Eggplant with Morning Glory

In this episode of Pasher Barir Ranna, Jessie Yung—chef and co-founder of Jessie Yung’s Kitchen—cooks a wholesome stir fry of eggplants with morning glory (kolmi shaak) that she grew up eating in her Hakka Chinese household in Calcutta.

Jessie runs her much loved cloud kitchen, Jessie Yung’s Kitchen, in Calcutta with her husband Peter and her two children. Started during the pandemic, Jessie’s takeaway-only menu has a dedicated following. They intentionally steer clear of usual Chinese restaurant fare, choosing instead to feature Hakka and Cantonese homestyle dishes, as well as dishes from the different parts of China and South-East Asia that Jessie learns on her travels.

This particular recipe from Hakka cuisine (客家菜), roughly translates to “stir-fried (炒) eggplant (茄子), morning glory (空心菜) and minced meat (肉碎). Jessie prefers to use a pork belly or a shoulder with some fat for the meat. She minces the meat by hand for a better texture. It is possible to use other meat too although the taste won’t be quite the same.

Being a Chinese stir-fry, Jessie stresses on the importance of having all components prepared beforehand because once the cooking starts, it all happens on high heat and at lightning pace. Jessie also cooks the eggplants and the morning glory separately in two stages and combines them in the end. This is to retain the colour of the morning glory which can easily turn a dull green when trying to cook everything together in one pan.

This dish uses a few ingredients which may not be in your pantry, such as the doban jiang, oyster sauce, dried shiitake mushrooms, etc. These are all readily available in New Market. We purchased them from Nasiruddin Sardar who runs Shop no. 39A in the spice lane inside New Market.

This dish is best served with short grained, fragrant, raw rice. Basmati is best avoided. We used super aromatic Chine Kamini rice on the day of filming but you could also use Gobindobhog. Jessie mentions that this eggplant-morning glory stir fry tastes even better the next day. Besides boiled rice, it is delicious with rice congee and even toast! We hope you give this a try.

🥢 Jessie Yung’s Kitchen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessieyung.kitchen/
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📝 FULL WRITTEN RECIPE WITH INGREDIENT LIST
https://www.bongeats.com/recipe/eggplant-and-morning-glory-stir-fry
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🌶️ Biryani moshla: https://www.amar-khamar.com/products/biryani-moshla
🌾 Chine Kamini rice: https://www.amar-khamar.com/products/chine-kamini
🛺 Order online, or pick up directly from the Amar Khamar store in Kolkata: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZoZWVeMbcXUF7gh79
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🎵 Music: “Barir pashe arshi nagar” originally composed by Lalon Fakir in the 1800s.
– Re-arranged and recorded for Bong Eats by
– Diptanshu Roy @dolinman (mandolin)
– @TarishiMukherjee (vocals)
– Abhijit Kundu (guitar)
– Nilesh Banerjee (drums)