How Do You Know When to Pick Your Eggplant
There are two main reasons that a recipe instructs y'all to salt (and then pat dry, then rinse) your sliced or cubed eggplant. (And when this happens, y'all groan! Yous elevate out the colander! You sometimes don't oblige at all.)
- Merits 1: Bitterness. Salting the eggplant volition draw out the eggplant'southward bitter liquids, many merits.
Simply in On Food and Cooking, Harold McGee surmises that the added table salt changes our perception rather than the eggplant's actual flavor. AND in How to Pick a Peach, Russ Parsons writes that salting does not remove bitterness—and he recently did the test to prove it.
- Claim 2: Oil assimilation. As the common salt draws h2o out of the cells, the eggplant's spongy structure is weakened as the cells collapse. Some say that salting condenses the flesh, which makes it less likely to blot oil as it chips.
BUT, as Parsons explains, the shriveled cells are actually amend able to absorb oil during frying, which means a creamier, silkier texture as opposed to a meatier, chewier i. And in The Nutrient Lab, Kenji López-Alt focuses on air, not oil: The key for optimally-textured eggplant is removing air—breaking downward the jail cell construction and pressing out the air in between—and this can be achieved by microwaving eggplant slices between a sandwich of paper towels and plates earlier yous fry.
Okay, so bitterness and oil absorption, merely with much dispute. In The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison recommends salting slices or cubes for xxx minutes to remove bitterness, 60 or more to achieve better fried eggplant.
So what should you do? Well, earlier you add together an hour or two to your dinner prep, ask yourself these questions (to see if you tin can avoid it):
Accept y'all always experienced eggplant as bitter?
If you're an eggplant super-taster (congratulations?), you may want to salt your eggplant for reassurance no matter what you're making with information technology. As Madison confesses, "I know some cooks who e'er salt their eggplants and others who never do, reflecting perhaps their own sensitivity—or lack thereof—to eggplant."
If you've been getting good-tasting results without salting, keep as you were.
Unless, that is, you discover yourself with an sometime, squishy eggplant or you're frying it and looking for that yielding, silken texture. (Read on.)
What kind of eggplant do yous have (and how big and how old is it)?
"Eggplant that's freshly picked, harvested before information technology'due south overly mature, and eaten within a few days is naturally sweet and doesn't demand salting, nor practise the slender Asian varieties," writes Deborah Madison in The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.
You desire young eggplants, and Mark Bittman assures readers of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian that if "the eggplant is fresh and house, chances are information technology volition taste pretty expert without salting it, regardless of the variety." Parsons goes so far as to say your eggplants should exist "rock-difficult."
If fresh eggplant is not an selection (or if age is incommunicable to decide), look for the small Asian varieties (though not the seedy green Southeast Asian ones prized for their bitterness—that'd exist ironic). And for those that have been in storage or, in Madison's words, are "over the colina," salting removes some of the bitterness that heightens with age. Large, soft, or especially seedy eggplants? Take the time and energy to salt.
What are you planning to do with information technology?
Are you roasting, charring, grilling, or microwaving a firm, young eggplant? Laissez passer "Get" and collect your unsalted eggplant.
If you're going to fry your eggplant—pan-fry, deep-fry, sauté in a generous slick of oil—and you want a silky texture (for pasta alla norma or eggplant Parmesan, for example—something that melts rather than fights back), y'all'll want to take the fourth dimension to salt.
The exception? If you lot're frying eggplant and you lot don't mind if information technology's chewier and truer to its shape—maybe that's how you like your caponata or ratatouille—skip the salting.
To make things a bit more disruptive, Ottolenghi, who is arguably our generation'south Greatest Eggplant Abet, salts his eggplant sometimes, but non others. (Oh male child.) In Plenty More than, eggplant cubes are non salted before they are deep-fried and added to udon noodles; but eggplant chunks are salted in his Eggplant, Potato, Lycopersicon esculentum, where they're fried in i centimeter of oil. Hmmm. The variation in method may exist the outcome of unlike intentions for the eggplant's texture or of the unique backdrop of deep-frying versus pan-frying. In his Eggplant Pahi, the eggplant slices are fried, salted, and then left to drain.
Seems like another rabbithole entirely—and we demand answers!
So, the decision:
Salt your eggplant if it's quondam and soft and/or if you're frying it and looking for a texture and then accommodating it will bend over backwards for yous—or, if you're doing admittedly everything in your will to brand sure it doesn't sense of taste bitter.
And to prove the point, a cursory breakdown of eggplant recipes based on which side of the salt-no salt coin they fall:
Salted
Not Salted
Above, the slices are salted and pressed, simply not for any extended period of time.
The eggplant is seasoned before being baked, only it is not salted for an extended period of time.
Above, the eggplant gets soaked in cold water while the other ingredients are prepared in order "to remove the bitterness."
What'southward your get-to, no-questions-asked eggplant cooking method? Tell us: Nosotros want to know.
Source: https://food52.com/blog/17634-do-you-really-need-to-salt-your-eggplant-a-candid-guide
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