I love eggplant. The best eggplant dish I ever tasted was a sambal belacan stir fry.

Sambal is a delicious chili paste with garlic, ginger and shallot.  Belacan is a fermented shrimp paste with a strong aroma.  Both are available ready made from Asian stores.

Many years ago I was a poor university student who worked for an Asian restaurant as a casual waitress. One evening, a casual cook rocked up to fill a shift. He made us a dish of sambal belacan eggplant for staff meal.  The dish was so aromatic and delicious that I can still remember his nameless imagine today – cranky,  middle age,  distinctively Chinese-Malay with his strong accent.

My version of sambal balacan eggplant is  really simple:

• cut the eggplant into large cubes, dust with potato starch
• in a frying pan with generous amount of cooking oil, fry some sambal paste, a little belacan, and some dried fried shallot (optional) 
• add eggplant,  a dash of oyster sauce, a dash of sesame oil,  a dash of dark soy sauce, toss toss toss until the eggplant is cooked through
• for a smooth texture, mix 1 tsp corn flour with 6 tsp of water, add to the dish at the last stage of cooking

Nice with some hot boiled rice.