Di San Xian Potatoes
We’ve made it to D in my A-Z Potato series and it’s time for a potato I’ve never cooked before (I want to use this series to cook some dishes that expand my potato horizons and this one certainly did that!). Here is my take on Di San Xian – a potato, aubergine and pepper dish from North-Eastern China. It’s a delicious mix of vegetables which you’d never miss the meat from and makes for a delicious plant-based dinner.
It’s so important to respect the culture of the dish when trying new things and adapting them at home, so I called upon some friends to steer me in the right direction. Firstly, my sister-in-law (well, my boyfriend’s brother’s wife) Christine who let me know it was actually one of her favourite dishes when she was growing up in the Hei Long Jiang Province. It’s one that reminds her of her grandparents as they would cook it for her and her cousins, and she actually has recreated a lot while living her in the UK for the past nine years. My brother-in-law is a lucky man! One of the interesting things about the dish is that it literally means ‘Three Treasures from the Ground’ and really does put the vegetables (or the treasures) at the front as the stars of the dish.
I also spoke to the cooking extraordinaire Kwoklyn Wan who gave me this advice on how to nail the perfect Di San Xian: “Always start by frying the potatoes for a good 8-10 minutes before adding the other veg as they will suck up too much oil if you add it too early. Make sure you fry all the veggies first before adding the sauce ingredients.”
Ingredients
- 2 medium white potatoes, it can be any. Maris piper, king Edward, Yukon gold anything really.
- 1 Chinese aubergine
- 1/2 a red pepper & 1/2 a green pepper
- 4 tbsp cornflour
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- FOR THE SAUCE
- 3 tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine
- 3 tbsp seasoned soy sauce or just dark soy
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp cornflour
- 2 tbsp water
- Pinch of sesame seeds
Method
- Get the potatoes peeled and chopped into rough chunks. All fairly even sized but odd shapes.
- Place them in a saucepan, cover with cold water, add salt to the pan and bring to the boil and boil for 5ish minutes until tender but not completely soft. Drain the potatoes and leave to cool until you can touch them.
- Chop your aubergine in a similar way that you did the potatoes and get them into a bowl and add some corn flour to coat. Leave to the side for later. Also get the peppers chopped into nice large chunks and leave to the side too.
- Make the sauce by mixing the shoaxing wine, soy sauces, sesame oil, sugar and salt. Taste and adjust to your liking. Leave for later, also make the cornflour slurry by mixing the cornflour and water in a small bowl, again leave this for later.
- If you have a wok then add your oil to it and get it on to a high heat. If using a large pan then do the same. You need just enough oil to almost cover the potatoes.
- When the potatoes have cooled enough, get them into a bowl and coat with corn flour. Then once the oil is hot enough to make a chopstick bubble (170°C-ish) carefully add the coated potatoes and leave to cook until crispy and golden, around 5-8 minutes.
- Then add in the coated aubergine and cook for another 6-10 minutes until the aubergine is soft. Then add the peppers and cook for only another minute. Then remove the veggies from the pan and transfer the oil to another pan. Or drain the whole pan from the oil and veggies.
- In the same pan, usings any little oil that’s left in there add the garlic and spring onions and cook high and quick for a few seconds until fragrant then add the fried veggies back into the pan or wok. Give it all a good mix for a few seconds.
- Add the sauce mix and aggressivly toss. Then add about 2 tbsps of your cornflour slurry and let the sauce thicken. Then you are ready to serve. Sprinkle over some sesame seeds and the greens of the spring onions. This dish is usually served with rice, it’s bloody delicious.