For each novice cook, cooking is like playing a lottery: you can never say with confidence that the dish will be tasty, because there are products whose taste can be spoiled simply by choosing the wrong pre-processing method.
That is why many novice cooks most common eggplant enters into a stupor.
Do I need to clean eggplants? How to clean the eggplant?
What can one cook? All these questions do not give rest to the debutants in the field of cooking.
Do eggplants need to be peeled or left peeled?
Surprisingly, each person should give an answer to this question for himself. Eggplants do not have to be cleaned. This is done in order to reduce the bitterness in the dish, as there are a lot of spicy and bitter substances in the eggplant peel. In addition, there is another way to remove the bitterness from the product - just soak the chopped pieces in a salty solution.
The first option is much easier than the second, and takes less time. That is why most people simply peel the rind off the vegetable instead of soaking it. Sometimes for cooking it is necessary to reduce bitterness to a minimum, and for this it is necessary to cut the seeds of eggplant, if it is overripe. Fortunately, these are rare cases: if the eggplant is fresh, its seeds do not have a very pronounced spicy taste, so they can be left inside.
If you are not accustomed to too spicy and bitter dishes, you are advised to peel the eggplants before cooking or chop them with discs and fry them with the peel, but before serving remove the peel from already prepared eggplants. If your goal is a tender stew or caviar, then clean the vegetables before cooking.
Instruction “how to clean eggplants”
Cleaning eggplants is no big deal. They must first be washed, and later deal with the vegetable, as with the usual potatoes. If you have enough young eggplants, then the peel will be very easy to remove. You just need to follow the plan, following step by step:
• Dry the wet, thoroughly washed eggplant with a towel.
• Remove the top of the vegetable where the stem is located.
• If there are any rotten places on the fruit, cut them first, and then begin cleaning the whole eggplant.
• Put the knife to the top and slowly lead from one end to the other, cutting off a thin layer of peel and leaving the pulp as much as possible. Using this method, peel the whole eggplant. That's all, this method is ideal for cooking stews or soup.
How to clean the eggplants if they are stale on the shelf
It is easy to clean young eggplants, however, the situation is different with old fruits. They are less amenable to cleaning. Firstly, the skin is much more dense, and it is harder than young vegetables. Secondly, its taste is more pronounced, and to get rid of it, the skin must be removed with the upper layer of pulp.
To cope with this difficult task, it’s enough to use a little trick: you need to soak the old eggplants in a lightly salted solution before cleaning. It is prepared according to the proportion: 1 tablespoon of salt per 1 tablespoon of water. If you do not want to prepare a solution, you can simply put the eggplants in the pan, bring to a boil and immediately transfer them to cold water. Then you can easily peel off the peel or leave it. These 2 ways will help get rid of excess bitterness in old eggplants.
How to clean the eggplants to get the original dish
If you are tired of trivial dishes and want to try something new and interesting, you can try different ways of cleaning and slicing eggplants. Any eggplant can be cut into at least four ways: discs, strips, cubes and just halves. In some case, for cutting, an eggplant without skin will be needed, but in another it may not be cleaned of it. In addition, eggplants can be used in three versions: cleaned, not cleaned and “striped”. The last option is suitable for those who like the food to be not only tasty, but also beautiful, because the striped eggplant in the dish will look very original thanks to this color contrast.
A simple recipe for an eggplant dish
Eggplant is an almost universal ingredient. It can be used as a separate dish, and as an additive to others: stews, caviar, soup, etc. However, those who have never cooked anything from eggplants, it is recommended to try monoblyud from them.
We will need 3 eggplants, oil and spices to taste. Clean the eggplants and cut them into disks with a thickness of 5 mm. Grill the pan, pour the oil. Then just lay out the eggplants on it and fry on each side for 3-5 minutes. Then remove the remaining oil and sprinkle with spices. A dish of only 1 ingredient is ready!
