Eggplant salads - general cooking principles
"Blue" - so many housewives affectionately call eggplant. They reign on our tables from mid-summer until the very end of autumn. Many associate eggplant with vegetables, but few people know that they have nothing to do with them. Yes, yes, the eggplants so familiar to us do not belong to vegetables, but are the most berries. Amazing fact, isn't it?
Ancient India is considered to be their ancestral home, where eggplants were cultivated by humans for food purposes. In the Caucasus, they are widely consumed with other vegetables and meat fried or stewed. They appeared in our country relatively recently and, unfortunately, are not used for culinary purposes as often as we would like. But in vain! After all, eggplants have a very unusual piquant taste and are combined with a huge number of ingredients. In addition, they are superior to many vegetables in nutritional value and useful properties. Yes, they are harmful and require prior preparation to eliminate all bitterness. So what? Believe me, this lightweight flaw is more than compensated by the unusually tasty dishes prepared from our today's "hero" - eggplant.
A huge variety of dishes can be prepared from these healthy pseudo-vegetables. In our case, we confine ourselves only to eggplant salads as the most useful and optimal option. Raw or boiled fruits, as a rule, are not used with rare exceptions. First they are soaked, then fried, baked in the oven or pickled for a long time, and only after such processing can our eggplants be used as the main raw material for salads.
Eggplant Salad - Product Preparation
So, let's take a look at a few recommendations on how to choose eggplant and prepare it correctly. Inspect the fruits before buying: they should not have any extraneous stains, dents or scratches. Their skin should be perfectly smooth. For mechanical effects on the surface of an eggplant, such as a finger, evaluate its structure. If the eggplant is amenable to pressure, then only with strong pressure. We need such a "vegetable", a little immature.
Now our task is to "drive out" solanine (a substance that gives bitterness) from eggplant. To do this, peel the eggplant, cut into slices no more than 1 cm thick and sprinkle the slices with salt. We leave them in this state for about an hour, after which we simply rinse under a stream of cold water. An alternative to this method is ordinary salt water, in which the eggplant should be soaked for about half an hour.
Eggplant Salad - Best Recipes
Recipe 1: Korean Eggplant Salad
This is a light vegetable snack, which must be cooked several hours before serving, so that each piece in the salad can be properly marinated and get a rich taste. As the main components we will use only vegetables.
Ingredients:
- two eggplants (preferably slightly unripe)
- two carrots
- two onions
- two sweet peppers
- one table. tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (6%)
- soy sauce 1 table. l
- five tablespoons of vegetable oil
- salt
Cooking method:
Cut the eggplants into thin semicircles, sprinkle with plenty of salt, stand for about an hour and rinse. Then fry them in hot oil until golden brown. Peel and cut the carrots in half circles, and onions in half rings. Peppers will be cleaned from seeds and cut into strips. Mix all the vegetables and add the fried eggplant to them.
Next, prepare salad dressing by mixing vegetable oil, vinegar and soy sauce in a separate bowl. After which we salt the dish, season it, stir everything thoroughly, close the lid and put it in a cool place (refrigerator) for 9-24 hours. Do not forget to occasionally shake our salad.
Recipe 2: Eggplant Salad with Mushrooms
Amazing dish, all the ingredients of which are stacked in layers. Fried eggplant melted in your mouth, sprinkled with garlic, fried mushrooms with onions, stewed carrots, and tomato slices on top - all the ingredients complement each other perfectly and combine in a very tasty and satisfying salad!
Ingredients:
- two to three small eggplant
- champignon mushrooms 350 gr.
- 4 medium carrots
- tomatoes 5 pcs.
- 2 bow heads
- two cloves of garlic
- one art. lies. mayonnaise
- for frying - vegetable oil
- a pinch of black pepper
- salt and a sprig of parsley
Cooking method:
1. My mushrooms, cut into slices, onions - in half rings, peel the carrots and rub it on a grater. We cut off the tail of the eggplant and remove the skin from them with a thin layer of a knife.
2. Cut the eggplants into circles and fill them with salt. Boil the mushrooms for 10 minutes, then throw them in a colander.
3. Fry the onion (1 head) with mushrooms in hot oil. Spread the roast. Then in the same pan we pass the 2nd head of onions with carrots (first fry the onions, then toss the carrots, add 50 ml of water and stew for about 15 minutes).
4. Fry eggplant on both sides. Finely chop the garlic, cut the tomatoes into slices and proceed to the preparation of the salad, which we will lay out in layers on a flat plate:
1 layer - eggplant + sprinkle with garlic
2 layer - half the fried carrots with onions
3 layer - mushrooms with onions
4 layer - remaining carrots
5 layer - spread the tomatoes
The last layer is slightly salted, greased with mayonnaise and sprinkled with finely chopped parsley.
Recipe 3: Eggplant Salad with Cheese
A very tasty appetizer, which includes juicy tomatoes, eggplant and cheese (preferably Feta or Adygea). All ingredients combine perfectly and together create a very harmonious dish.
Ingredients:
- 4 medium eggplants
- 4 ripe tomatoes
- 200 gr. cheese
- 2 chicken eggs
- a pair of onion heads
- apple vinegar
- soy sauce
- light mayonnaise or low-fat sour cream
- olive oil
- pepper and salt
Cooking method:
Beat eggs with salt and pepper. We cut the eggplants in half rings and leave in the egg marinade for 20 minutes. In this way, the pieces will pour juice with which bitterness will come out. Cut the onions in half rings and pickle in a solution of apple cider vinegar and water (50 to 50). Fried eggplant prepared on both sides. Dice the tomatoes and mix them with the cooled eggplant. Squeeze the onion from the marinade and add salad to it, also three cheese on a grater. We prepare a sauce of mayonnaise (sour cream) and soy sauce in a ratio of 1: 1 and season the salad with the mixture. Mix everything thoroughly. The original dish is ready!
Recipe 4: Eggplant Salad with Chicken
The main characters of this salad are chicken and eggplant, which together create an unusual composition, and a small pickled cucumber will add a touch of flavor to the dish.
Ingredients:
- 200 gr. eggplant
- 1 potato (boiled)
- chicken fillet 100 gr.
- one pickled cucumber
- one small carrot
- greens and salt to taste
Ingredients for Refueling:
- half a glass of sour cream
- a tablespoon of lemon juice
- half a teaspoon. mustard
Cooking method:
We clean the eggplants from the skin, cut into slices and sauté them in vegetable oil with the addition of basil. We cut the chicken, cucumber, carrots and potatoes into cubes, chop the greens. Mix vegetables and greens with eggplant fried with basil. Cooking dressing with sour cream, mustard and lemon juice. Fill our salad with the mixture. Tasty, original and simple enough. Eat for health!
Eggplant Salads - Useful Tips
- “Old” eggplants are very difficult to peel, so we recommend that you first scald them with boiling water. This manipulation will greatly facilitate the process. But still too overripe fruits are absolutely not suitable for the preparation of salads;
- Eggplant is a dietary food, but during the frying process they absorb a lot of fat. If you do not want to hurt your body, soak the fruits before frying in salt water, and not just sprinkle them with salt. Staying in a liquid "vegetables" will not absorb so much oil;
- It is important to note that eggplants bring undeniable benefits to people who are trying to quit smoking, as they contain a certain fraction of nicotine, but not the same as in a cigarette. “Eggplant nicotine” is a complex compound, does not cause addiction and does not harm health, unlike its tobacco counterpart, but significantly reduces cravings in people who have embarked on the “true path”.
