Dark-fruited nightshade, also known as eggplant, is loved by many as a snack or side dish. But before cooking, it is often necessary to remove the bitterness from eggplants before frying - after all, the freshest young fruits do not always end up in our grocery basket. There are several methods that housewives and professional chefs use. We have selected 7 of the most effective ones for you.
Dry soaking
To carry out the procedure, prepared vegetables are cut and placed in a deep container, sprinkled with coarse salt. This is a mandatory condition, because the structure of the pulp is porous - fine salt will be absorbed, and the dish will be over-salted. They use sea salt, mineralized salt, ordinary salt, the main thing is that the coarser the better. After 20-30 minutes, when droplets of liquid appear on the surface, the eggplants are washed with running water.
There is another option, how to soak eggplants using the dry method. Place a wire rack at the bottom of the container and eggplants coated with coarse salt on top. Cover the dish with a lid and leave for 30-35 minutes. put under oppression. After this time, the vegetable is thoroughly washed.
The method used depends on the freshness of the product. It is permissible to soak fresh ones without oppression, but those that have been sitting for a long time require a lot of effort to extract the bitterness. Fresh eggplants are shiny, smooth, with elastic skin, firm, with green leaves near the stem. If the vegetable is soft and the stalk is dry, it was cut a long time ago - oppression is required.
Before frying, the product is dried on a paper napkin or linen towel. During the cooking process, the dish is slightly salted. First, try a raw piece: it happens that during soaking the vegetable is well salted, and additional seasoning only spoils the dish.
Soaking using milk
Soaking fresh eggplant in milk is another option that doesn't require salt. Vegetables for 30 min. They are immersed under pressure, after which the liquid is squeezed out of them. It is good to use a paper towel for spinning. After this, the vegetables are dried and used for cooking.
For soaking in milk, you should not cut the product too finely; medium pieces are ideal. They are cut in half or into 4 parts.
There is a drawback that you must get rid of before eating eggplants - bitterness. To do this, you need to soak the eggplants. There are several ways to do this.
Before cooking, prepare the vegetables: thoroughly wash, dry, remove the tails and any damage to the skin.
Soaking in salt water
Salt water will remove the bitterness from the vegetable.
Soaking in salt water is the most popular option. The soaking time depends on what pieces the vegetable is cut into. If these are thin circles or slices, half an hour will be enough. If it is important to soak the eggplants as a whole, it will take 2 hours. The main thing is to take time so that all the bitterness comes out.
The soaking algorithm looks like this:
- Prepare a solution: take 1 tbsp for 1 liter of water. l. salt. You will also need pressure to “drown” the vegetables in the pan.
- Place the vegetables in a saucepan, add salted water and set for the required time.
- Rinse with water and allow excess liquid to drain. For faster results, it is permissible to squeeze.
EGGPLANTS - what should and should NOT be done with them (but many people do it anyway)?
The season of “little blue ones” is approaching and very soon we will be cooking a lot and tasty - and not from inedible greenhouse eggplants, but from real, fresh and delicious ground eggplants
.
On such a wonderful occasion - some tips
lovers of these amazing vegetables.
1. Quite often in recipes you will see a recommendation to pre -soak
eggplants in salted water or sprinkle them with salt to remove bitterness.
Do not do that!
This advice might have been relevant a hundred years ago (okay, forty), but today it is not only meaningless, but also harmful. In modern eggplant varieties, the content of solanine, which imparts bitterness to the fruit, is significantly reduced. So young fresh fruits can be easily prepared without prior soaking or other manipulations. The exception is old, overripe and stale eggplants - it’s really better to pre-process them.
One more nuance. When frying, eggplants soaked in salt water (or simply sprinkled with salt) absorb significantly more oil than dry ones.
Think about it, do you need it?
Advice.
If you want to fry eggplants in a minimum amount of oil, fry them dry and do not add salt either before or during cooking! It’s better to add salt to the finished dish later.
Another way to reduce the amount of oil when frying is to lightly coat the eggplant slices in flour.
2. Again, we often read that eggplants must be peeled before cooking.
Is it so? Nope.
The skin of the eggplant is very tasty, it has a wonderful “smoky” flavor. Besides, there is nothing harmful in it. So why give up this deliciousness? The only negative is that it is a bit harsh.
It only makes sense to peel eggplants if you are going to make caviar. But even in this case, it is better to first bake the fruits, and only then remove the skin from them. With this method of cooking, eggplants will retain maximum taste and benefits.
Well, some interesting facts.
1. Eggplants prevent the body from absorbing cholesterol.
2. The best “partner” of eggplant is garlic. They complement each other perfectly.
3. Japanese scientists have proven that eggplants are capable of removing all sorts of rubbish from the human body, including drugs and heavy metal salts.
4. From a botanical point of view, eggplant is not a vegetable at all, but a berry.
5. Raw eggplant can be used to make an excellent moisturizing face mask.
Have a nice summer! And don't forget to like the author
.
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Do I need to rinse eggplants after salting them? Why and how to soak eggplants? Useful tips
Eggplant is a common vegetable, but not everyone’s favorite. This is probably due to its taste characteristics. Dishes made from bluefish can be called somewhat savory. And all because of the tart and somewhat bitter taste. Therefore, it is believed that eggplants need to be soaked before cooking. But is it really necessary to do this? It turns out that the reason lies in the “age” of the fruit and the variety. Let's take a closer look at why and how to soak eggplants. Perhaps this article will help you take a different look at generally accepted culinary habits or change them somewhat.
Method 7 - in the freezer
For preparing “overseas eggplant” caviar, the method of removing bitterness using cold is well suited. It is used when there is time to spare, and vegetables do not necessarily need to retain their shape during heat treatment. If necessary, wash the eggplants, peel them, then cut them into pieces, put them in a plastic bag and put them in the freezer for at least 3-4 hours. After removing from the freezer, the vegetables are defrosted naturally, and then pressed to remove excess liquid. The bitterness goes away along with it.
Delicious seasonal vegetables such as eggplants are fried in slices, baked, or prepared as stews or caviar. To prevent them from becoming bitter, it is better to process them before cooking. Now you can do this using one of seven simple and effective ways.
Eggplant is a common vegetable, but not everyone’s favorite. This is probably due to its taste characteristics. Dishes made from bluefish can be called somewhat savory. And all because of the tart and somewhat bitter taste. Therefore, it is believed that eggplants need to be soaked before cooking. But is it really necessary to do this? It turns out that the reason lies in the “age” of the fruit and the variety. Let's take a closer look at why and how to soak eggplants. Perhaps this article will help you take a different look at generally accepted culinary habits or change them somewhat.
Reasons for the unusual taste. Why and how to soak eggplants?
Do you know that it turns out that not all fruits taste so piquant? Even before cooking begins, you can determine whether they will be bitter.
Firstly, it depends on the degree of ripeness of the eggplants. Young blues usually do not have tart “shades”. And if you grow them at home, then this is a guarantee of getting an excellent-tasting vegetable. After all, on your own plot, all garden work (fertilizing, weeding, harvesting) is carried out as expected. It is especially important to water the blue ones on time. By absorbing water, they become saturated with moisture and become very pleasant to the taste in cooked dishes. In mass cultivation, this rule is not always observed. In addition, the harvest is not carried out very regularly, so large fruits with hard brown veins and dense pulp come across.
Secondly, when breeding new varieties, breeders try to eliminate plant deficiencies. Therefore, eggplants grown from high-quality raw materials and which are modern hybrids, as a rule, do not taste bitter.
From everything we can conclude that young fruits with delicate spongy pulp, grown at home from seeds of new varieties, will never be bitter. If you still want to play it safe before preparing the dish, then use one of the processing methods: dry sprinkling with salt or immersing in the solution for a while. The choice depends on the fruit processing technology.
How to soak eggplants in saline solution?
Cut the blue ones in the form of transverse circles or longitudinal slices. Then dissolve 1 heaped tablespoon of salt in 1 liter of cold raw water. Pour the mixture into the solution and leave for a while. How long to soak eggplants? This will take 20-30 minutes. Since they have a spongy structure, they can float. Many housewives cover the dishes with a wide plate and place a weight on top, immersing the pieces completely in the solution. Before cooking, rinse the pieces under running water and allow to drain.
How to dry soak eggplants ?
Sprinkle the mugs with salt, using about 2 tbsp. l. for 2-3 medium eggplants. After a while they will release juice, with which all the bitterness will come out. With this processing option, you can also remove the peel using a sharp knife. After 35-40 minutes, rinse the eggplants with water and start cooking. Marinated blue ones, pre-soaked using the dry method, are especially good.
There is a drawback that you must get rid of before eating eggplants - bitterness. To do this, you need to soak the eggplants. There are several ways to do this.
Before cooking, prepare the vegetables: thoroughly wash, dry, remove the tails and any damage to the skin.
Do I need to peel eggplants before frying? Is it necessary to peel eggplants before cooking?
The culinary delights of every modern housewife are unique. Healthy food recipes deserve the most attention. And vegetables most often become their main ingredients. Along with the usual fruits of zucchini, cabbage, and carrots from the garden, eggplant has taken its rightful place on our table. After all, you can invent many unusual, tasty, nutritious, healthy dishes from it. Do I need to peel eggplants? This question interests many cooks, especially beginners.
The process of pre-processing the vegetable is also of no small importance. To this day, cooks, especially beginners, are faced with the question: is it necessary to peel eggplants?
There is an opinion that in many vegetables all the benefits lie in the peel. From a dietary point of view, the dietary fiber contained in eggplant normalizes the functions of the gastrointestinal tract. And the bitterness present in the vegetable is not in the peel, but in the pulp. Therefore, before cooking, it is recommended to soak it in water with a little salt.
If the fruit is overripe, it is better to remove the peel, but representatives of the young harvest do not need to be peeled. Therefore, there is no set rule whether you need to peel the eggplant or not. Usually this point is taken into account when choosing a dish that you want to cook.
For example, without the peel, eggplant may lose its shape when it gets into the pan, so it is important to decide for yourself whether you need to peel the eggplant before frying. Still, in order to get whole pieces when frying, you should not remove the shell from the eggplant. If the fruit is young, then it is enough to cut it into slices and, after breading, place it in hot oil in a frying pan. It is better to soak overripe chopped slices for half an hour in salt water.
If you plan to stew the blue ones, it is better to clean them before cooking. In the case of preparing caviar, puree, ajapsandal, cleaning is mandatory.
Rules for cleaning eggplants
Just like any other vegetable from the garden, eggplant requires careful treatment with running water. How to peel the blue ones? Using a knife with a sharp blade, remove the tip at the base of the stem. This area of the fruit is the hardest and removing it will only improve the consistency of the dish.
How to remove the peel, if, of course, the recipe requires it, the following everyday tips will help:
- Holding the fruit firmly with your hand on a cutting board, using a vegetable peeler or paring knife in your other hand, remove longitudinal strips of peel from top to bottom. Such alternating movements must be performed until the eggplant is completely freed from its shell.
- If you do not peel off some of the longitudinal stripes on the pulp, you can get a striped eggplant. A distinctive feature of this approach is not only its originality, but also the prevention of the pulp from falling apart during cooking.
In a word, getting rid of the eggplant peel can turn into not only a mechanical, but also a creative process. It all depends on your ingenuity. Well, whether to clean it or not is everyone’s choice.
How to process eggplants before frying. How to remove bitterness from eggplants before cooking
Eggplants are readily used in cooking in many countries. This tasty and healthy vegetable, a valuable source of protein, is used to make a wide variety of dishes, snacks and preserves for the winter. During the preparation of many dishes, blueberries undergo special treatment, which helps them get rid of bitterness. So, what should you do to prevent eggplants from becoming bitter?
This useful information will be useful to many cooks, especially beginners, who want to properly prepare this wonderful vegetable.
Causes of bitter taste
Why are eggplants bitter? The blue ones contain large amounts of solanine. This is a toxic substance that gives the fruits a bitter taste. The longer the blue ones ripen, the more bitter and poisonous they will taste.
Today, many hybrid varieties have been bred whose fruits do not contain bitterness, for example, “White Night”, “Taste of Mushrooms” or “Green”.
Options for removing bitterness
There are several ways to get rid of bitterness in eggplants.
Soaking
To remove bitterness, the fruits are soaked in salt water. First, the vegetables are cut into circles, cubes or cubes, depending on the cooking recipe, then dipped in a salty solution. Give 1 tablespoon of salt per liter of water. Then the blue ones are thrown into a sieve or colander to drain the remaining juice.
How long should you soak eggplants in salt water? It all depends on the condition of the pods. The older the vegetable, the longer it takes to soak. For young eggplants, half an hour is enough, but for old fruits – at least an hour. During this time, the vegetables will release juice and completely get rid of bitterness.
Sprinkling with salt
You don’t have to soak the eggplants. Many housewives use another method of “processing” the blue ones, sprinkling the sliced eggplant with salt. After 30 minutes, the blue ones are washed under cold water, drained in a colander and the remaining water is allowed to drain.
Freezing
- There is another way to remove bitterness from eggplants - by freezing. First, the blue ones are peeled, then cut into slices or cubes, placed in a plastic bag and placed in the freezer for four hours. Then the sliced eggplant is thawed and the resulting juice is squeezed out. True, after such treatment, the little blue ones quickly lose their shape and turn into a puree-like mass during the heat treatment process.
- The little blue ones give off bitterness well if you put them in milk for half an hour and put them under pressure. After this time, the fruits need to be slightly squeezed.
You can do it differently, bypassing manipulation with saline solution or freezing, removing the seeds in the fruits. The fruits are cut into two longitudinal parts and cleared of seeds using a teaspoon.
How to choose the right eggplants
The correct choice of eggplants is an important stage in the preparation of any dish, because depending on how blue they look and how they feel, the degree of their bitterness differs. It is not the pulp that is bitter, but the skin of nightshades, because it contains a special substance - solanine. In large quantities, this element can be harmful to humans and can cause poisoning or disease. Immediately after eggplants are picked from the garden, they have virtually no bitterness. After lying on the counter for a considerable time, a large amount of solanine is produced. How to choose eggplants without bitterness:
- Give preference to young fruits. If you can buy fresh eggplants at the market, take them. You can cook vegetables immediately after harvesting without using special methods to remove the bitterness - it won’t be there.
- Examine the stalk of the blue ones. It should be elastic, and the leaves adjacent to the vegetable should be green and alive. Avoid eggplants with dry leaves.
- Choose blue ones with a smooth surface; it should squeak slightly when you run your finger over it. Avoid eggplants with slippery skin.
- Do not take huge soft vegetables - they contain a lot of solanine. These are the old blue ones.
- The darker the skin, the better. These foods contain the highest amount of antioxidants.
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