Eggplant or blue, as people used to call them, is a vegetable from the Solanaceae family. An appetizing product of the hostess is used for cooking different dishes - salads, hot and savory snacks, vegetable caviar, side dishes for meat dishes, eggplant cakes and cutlets. Often eggplants are used for harvesting for the winter, because delicious canned vegetables are always appropriate on a daily or festive table. During the preparation of various dishes, it is important that the product is bitter, which is peculiar to some blue. For more information on how to remove it, see below.
How to choose the eggplant
The right choice of aubergines is an important stage in the preparation of any dish, because, depending on how the blue looks, how they feel, the degree of their bitterness differs. The flesh is not bitter, but the skin of nightshade, because it contains a special substance - solanine. In large quantities, this element can be harmful to humans, can cause poisoning or disease. Immediately after eggplants are ripped off the beds, they practically do not have bitterness. Having already spent a considerable time on the counter, a large amount of solanine is produced. How to choose aubergines without bitterness:
- Give preference to young fruits. If you can buy fresh eggplants in the market, take them. Vegetables immediately after harvesting can be prepared without using special methods to remove bitterness - it will not be there.
- Study the pedicel from the blue. It should be elastic, and the leaves adjacent to the vegetable, green and alive. Do not take aubergines with dry leaves.
- Choose blue with a smooth surface, that should slightly creak when carrying a finger on it. Refuse the aubergines with a 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. Such products contain the greatest amount of antioxidants.
Proven ways to get rid of bitterness in the eggplant
There are several proven ways to remove bitterness from eggplant. You can do this with the help of salt treatment, soaking the nightshade, freezing them, soaking in milk or cleaning. The way should be chosen individually, depending on what dish you want to cook. For example, cleaning involves the complete removal of the skins, while some recipes require its availability. Below you will learn a few simple methods of removing bitterness, which will definitely make dishes with eggplants even tastier.
Salt Treatment
There are two main ways to remove bitterness from the blue. Both of them are associated with the use of the usual iodized salt, which is found in every mistress of the house. The first one is called "dry", as during its implementation there is no soaking. You can treat the salt cut into slices, circles, cubes of eggplant. How to properly perform salt treatment without water:
- Prepare foods: aubergines well washed, wipe with a napkin, cut, remove the tails. Take a large salt. Large granules are necessary because of the porosity of the skins of blue: if the salt is too fine, the peel will soak it, the future dish can become salted because of this.
- Take a deep bowl, add there sliced or whole vegetables. Fill them with salt. Eggplant will take about twenty minutes - then a drop of liquid will appear on their surface.
- After the necessary time, rinse the eggplants, dry them and use for further cooking.
Soaking in water
The "wet" method of salted eggplant processing is also very popular. It's great if you do not want to cut the blue before processing, but you want to remove the bitterness while they're still whole. To carry out this procedure, you will need oppression, which will not allow the nightshade to emerge. How to properly soak fresh bitter aubergines in salt water:
- Type a saucepan with clean cold salted water. A liter of water is enough for one tablespoon of salt. Eggplants cut into slices, cubes or slices, also you can leave them whole.
- Put the vegetables in a saucepan. Blue will not completely sink in the water, so you'll need to install from above a yoke: they can serve as a wooden round board in the size of the pan, on top of which there is a stone.
- Keep the eggplant in salted water for about thirty minutes. If you put whole vegetables, the procedure for removing bitterness will take several hours.
- Rinse the vegetables after the desired time, lightly wring them out. You can use solanaceous for cooking.
The easiest way to peel blue from the rind of
If you do not want to spend a lot of time manipulating eggplants, or the recipe provides for peeled vegetables, you can get rid of the bitterness by peeling off the skin from the blue. To do this you will need a special vegetable peeler or a sharp knife. Removing the peel, you remove the source of bitterness - solanine, which it contains. How to peel blue from the peel:
- Thoroughly wash eggplants, wipe with a dry towel to clean the moisture.
- With a vegetable cleaner or knife, carefully peel off a thin layer of peel.
- Cut or grate eggplant according to the recipe for later cooking.
Another alternative way to make blue less bitter is to leave them in the freezer for several hours. To do this, rinse the product, drain, cut into slices. Fold them on a plate, leave to freeze for four hours. When the required amount of time has passed, remove the blue, wring out excess liquid. They are perfect for preparing eggplant puree or caviar, because they quickly lose shape when cooking.
Benefits and Harms of Blue
Eggplant is a healthy product that can become an important part of a balanced diet. Nightshade contains many useful vitamins and microelements necessary for the body. For example, they contain vitamins C, B, PP, such substances as magnesium, calcium, pectin, potassium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, fiber. Useful properties of blue:
- Help to cope with cigarette dependence. Thanks to the vitamin PP or nicotinic acid, the lack of cigarettes will be much easier to transfer.
- Promotes weight loss. The low caloric value of blue and their rich in vitamins make them an indispensable product in the diet of losing weight.
- Dispose of slag and excess liquid. This is due to the fiber contained in the vegetable culture.
- Stimulates digestion, removes cholesterol. This is facilitated by the maintenance in solanaceous pectin.
The only harm that blue organisms can bring is related to the solanine content in the skin of the vegetable culture. This alkaloid in large quantities can become a poison, cause poisoning, accompanied by the following symptoms - nausea, vomiting, fatigue, fever, general malaise. Solanine is mainly found in old fruits. Neutralize the alkaloid after poisoning will help milk, egg white, mucous soups.
Video instruction: how quickly to remove the eggplant from the eggplant
To make the eggplants tasty in the chosen dish, removing the bitterness from them is an important procedure before cooking. To do this, you can pick up the cut fruits for a while, soak them in water, freeze them for a few hours or simply peel them. For those who do this for the first time, it is important to know how to remove bitterness correctly, how long it will take. In the video below you will find out how much it is necessary to soak eggplants, so that they cease to be bitter, and what method exists for quickly eliminating bitterness. See interesting videos from experienced culinary experts: