How to soak eggplant seeds before planting

Eggplants: 5 ways to remove bitterness

Eggplant dishes are popular all over the world. The beneficial microelements that make up the vegetable have a beneficial effect on the functioning of the cardiovascular system, liver and kidneys. Eggplant breaks down fat deposits, so it is included in the diet during fasting and weight loss diets.

Fresh vegetables differ from those that have been sitting on store shelves because of their smooth and shiny skin. The color is bright, glossy and free of foreign stains. These young “blue ones” are suitable for preparing any dishes. Their flesh is tender and the taste is pleasant.

But it’s not always possible to buy goods “from the garden.” Stale vegetables, unlike young ones, have a slight bitterness. How to remove bitterness from eggplants so as not to spoil the taste of your favorite dishes?

We offer 5 popular and effective methods:

1. soaking in cold water;
2. soaking under pressure in a salt solution;
3. sprinkling with coarse salt;
4. peeling;
5. Boil for 2 minutes.

There is a sixth method, but we will reveal its secret at the end of the material.

To begin, place the blue ones in a container with warm water and rinse thoroughly. Remove the vegetable, trim the edges and dry with a kitchen towel.

Taste the ingredient. If there is bitterness, be sure to get rid of it.

Checking seeds for germination

The basis for obtaining good seedlings is checking eggplant seeds for germination. It is this that helps to identify nucleoli that are unsuitable for further cultivation, and also indicates truly high-quality material.

Seeds purchased from a specialized store do not need to be checked, because they have already been pre-selected and treated with special solutions that eliminate the presence of any defects. But if the seed kernels were extracted from ripened eggplants independently, then it is necessary to test them for defective elements.

It is quite easy to check the selected planting material. Some experienced summer residents do a visual inspection and, based on it, sort the eggplant kernels. But there is a more modern and reliable approach to testing seeds for quality.

Simply place the seeds in a small container, which should be filled with a solution of ordinary table salt. It must be 5% concentration. It is recommended to keep the eggplants in this solution for at least 30 minutes. During this time, those kernels that are unsuitable for sowing will certainly float to the surface. They must be removed immediately, and those seeds that remain at the bottom of the container should be removed and washed with clean water.

Then it is imperative to treat the seed material to disinfect it. A 1% solution of potassium manganese will help greatly in this important matter. You can also place eggplant kernels in a mixture consisting of water and hydrogen peroxide, which will require at least 10%. It is advisable for them to spend at least 20 minutes in such a liquid.

Only after completing all these mandatory steps in preparing eggplant seeds can you start soaking them.

How to remove bitterness from eggplants before cooking?

The blanks are washed and trimmed, now we select a convenient way to neutralize the bitterness.

Let's look at all the options in more detail:

• How to properly soak eggplants from bitterness - with ice water. Soaking in cold water is suitable for preparing eggplants “for tomorrow”. Place whole vegetables in a container and fill with liquid. Leave it overnight. In the morning, remove, squeeze out excess moisture and dry with a towel. Now all that remains is to chop it, add salt and put it in the frying pan.
• The second method is soaking under pressure in salt water. How long should you soak the eggplants until the bitterness goes away? This procedure will take 1 hour. Prepare a saline solution in a ratio of 1 tbsp. l. salt + 1 liter of water. Cut the blue ones lengthwise and place in a bowl. Fill with salt water and press with pressure. After the time has passed, remove the halves and rinse with clean tap water. Place on a kitchen towel or in a colander to remove excess liquid.
• Before frying, chop the blue ones into 5 mm - 1 cm circles. Place in a deep bowl and sprinkle with rock or iodized salt. Leave the granules to dissolve for 20 minutes, then rinse the mugs thoroughly with running water.
• The bitterness comes from the peel. Therefore, if the recipe does not contradict, carefully remove it with a sharp knife. In a thin layer, without touching the pulp.
• If you are going to cook a stew or puree soup - those dishes where the form of the ingredient does not matter, use boiling. Pour water into a saucepan and place it on the gas stove to heat. At this time, cut the eggplants into medium cubes and place them in a boiling container. After 2 minutes, remove from heat and pour the contents of the saucepan into a colander to get rid of excess liquid. When the water has drained, start preparing the dish. Using this method, you do not have to soak the product for a long time.
• The secret of the sixth method is freezing. This option is great for winter use. Prepare blue ones for future use, because in winter it is unlikely that you will be able to enjoy your favorite vegetable. Cut the pulp together with the peel into rounds or cubes. Place in plastic bags in portions - one serving at a time. Place in the freezer. And in winter, when you want to eat something special, take out the frozen preparations, let them sit and prepare a vitamin-rich meal.

And since we’re talking about cooking, we’ll finally give you a spicy dish of fresh eggplants with tomatoes and garlic-mayonnaise sauce.

Delicious cold eggplant appetizer

Prepare 2 medium eggplants and medium ripe tomatoes as needed. For lubrication – garlic and mayonnaise. For frying - vegetable oil and flour. Cut the “little blue” ones into circles, sprinkle with salt and stir. Let it brew for 20 minutes. Now rinse under the tap with cold water. Place on a towel.

Chop the tomatoes into circles. In a separate bowl, mix mayonnaise with grated garlic. Choose the amount of garlic to taste. Pour sunflower oil into the frying pan and heat it up.

Roll each eggplant slice in sifted flour on both sides and fry. When the circles acquire a golden brown hue, remove them and place them on a plate.

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Grease each circle with mayonnaise sauce. Place a tomato on top. A beautiful, appetizing and tasty appetizer is ready. Bon appetit!

Roll each eggplant slice in sifted flour on both sides and fry. When the circles acquire a golden brown hue, remove them and place them on a plate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Processing rules

So, how to soak eggplants? The best thing to do to prevent them from becoming bitter is to soak them in salt water. Vegetables that are too watery are not suitable for all recipes, so after this processing method you will have to remove excess moisture. If you don’t want to waste time on this, then you can not use water, but simply salt the eggplants - the result is almost the same.

Before doing this, you should figure out how long to soak the “little blue ones”. Some people think that if the product is left in solution for too long, it will be too salty. This is wrong. It is permissible to place it in salt water even for the whole night - this does not affect the taste.

Although it should be understood that the younger the vegetable, the less time it takes to eliminate the bitter taste. The easiest way is to try a piece of raw eggplant after some time. This will allow you to understand whether it is bitter, and also assess how much it has been saturated with salt.

Experienced housewives most often use salt so that the “blue” does not taste bitter, but you should know what and how to do to get results. There are only two main methods of processing, thanks to which the unpleasant aftertaste goes away.

In addition, additional methods can be used to remove bitterness from these products:

1. Soaking in milk.
2. Peeling vegetables from seeds.
3. Freezing. However, after it the eggplants do not retain their shape, and after heat treatment they take on the appearance of a puree.

Eggplant is a very healthy vegetable for the body, but not everyone can eat it because of its inherent bitterness. This problem can be easily dealt with using fairly simple processing methods, after which the vegetable not only retains its properties, but also becomes more tasty and healthy.

As you know, eggplant has been pleasing us with its unsurpassed taste for many centuries. It originally appeared in Eastern India, then it began to be grown in China and other Central Asian countries. In our country it appeared in the 18th century. At the same time, Russian residents were initially wary of it and prepared this vegetable with caution. Today, eggplant is included in many recipes. It can be either the main ingredient or a secondary one. However, in order for the dish to turn out really tasty, the eggplants need to be soaked.

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 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.

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.

At the final stage, thoroughly squeeze the water out of the vegetable. Vegetables must be salted before cooking.

Is it necessary to soak eggplants in salt water?

I once read that before cooking eggplant, in order to remove the bitterness , the eggplant should be soaked in salt water. Soaked it. Then I read that there is no need to do this. I tried not to soak it - there was no bitterness.

No, not necessarily. Bitterness is present only in late autumn harvests, and even then only in those that are harvested late, that is, overripe.

Fresh food is not bitter, which means there is no need to add salt.

A good recipe with eggplants:

cut off the tail, make a longitudinal cut and make several more longitudinal cuts in the resulting “dimple”. Season well with salt and insert lengthwise slices of garlic and lard into each individual cut (I love lamb tail, but it’s also good with pork).

Place the eggplants on a baking sheet and into the oven.

In 15-20 minutes you have the most delicate eggplant and lard dish on your table)))))

You can eat it with a teaspoon straight from the eggplant, the peel of which acts as a plate)))

I always buy, when choosing, young light purple eggplants and cook them without any soaking or salting. If you have to cook large black ones with dark seeds (especially for caviar), then I simply scald them with salted boiling water - cut into cubes or mugs.

I used to constantly soak eggplants in salt water before cooking (cut them into plastic pieces, put them in salt water and put pressure on top), because I read that this was necessary to remove the bitterness.

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But it turned out that you don’t have to soak them at all. And if you grow seedlings yourself and there is an F1 icon on the package with seeds, which means that it is a hybrid, then know that such eggplants do not taste bitter.

Overripe eggplants, which have dark purple skin, can taste bitter. They need to be soaked. Better yet, remove the peel. Although this is not an acquired taste, some people, on the contrary, like it with the peel, but I don’t like eggplants cooked with the peel.

Fresh food is not bitter, which means there is no need to add salt.

The feasibility of soaking eggplants

You can get rid of the bitter taste of eggplants by cutting them into cubes or circles before cooking and soaking them in salt water for 20-40 minutes. You can also sprinkle them with salt, wait until they release juice, and rinse it off under running water. Eggplant bitterness is most often concentrated in the eggplant peel, which can become bitter from overripeness, drought or cold, but modern varieties of this vegetable are protected from the bitter taste by new breeding developments.

Most often, bitterness is found in unripe or overripe eggplants, which can be easily identified by their dark seeds and rather tough fibers. Greenhouse eggplants, grown at optimal temperatures and sufficient moisture, can be purchased throughout the year. They are not bitter at all, however, unfortunately, they are inferior to ground eggplants in their taste.

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Removing bitterness from eggplants

Eggplant is a wonderful vegetable from the nightshade family. It pleases us with color, pleasant roundness of shapes, and taste. There are hundreds of recipes for eggplant dishes, but in almost every one we read: before cooking eggplants, you need to remove the bitterness from them. This advice will seem strange to those who are used to cooking fresh eggplants, just picked from the garden. There is no trace of bitterness in fresh eggplants.

But old eggplants that have been lying on the shelves for more than one day can indeed taste bitter. Some people perceive this bitterness as a piquant characteristic of eggplants, but these are in the minority. The majority of cooks and cooks struggle with the bitterness of eggplants, and successfully, using several methods, the effectiveness of which has been tested over the years.

How to choose eggplant without bitterness

To prevent future problems, choose your eggplants wisely. Mostly old vegetables are bitter and should not be purchased. Give preference to young and juicy fruits, which can be distinguished by their shiny and smooth skin. Noticed dark spots and signs of rot? Set the item aside.

Young fruits are distinguished by their oblong shape and modest size. Weigh the product in your hand - it will be quite heavy. If you cut a young eggplant in the kitchen, you will not find any seeds inside. Additional insurance is the hardness of the vegetable. Eggplants with a soft structure should be treated with boiling water or frozen in the refrigerator. In addition, there are special varieties without bitterness - this nuance can be clarified with the seller. Bon appetit!

Salt to the rescue

The first way to remove bitterness from eggplant is to use salt. This method has several options - “dry” and “wet”.

The “dry” method is very simple. The eggplants are cut and sprinkled with coarse salt at the cut points. After 20 minutes, droplets of liquid will appear on the surface. Now the eggplants can be rinsed with water or simply wiped with a dry towel. With this method, coarse salt is preferable to fine salt, because the structure of the eggplant pulp is very porous. Remember how much oil a slice of eggplant absorbs when fried. Therefore, if you take finely ground salt, you may end up with over-salted eggplants rather than bitter ones.

The “wet” method is also not particularly complicated. Eggplants are cut and placed in a pan of cold salted water. Since eggplants do not sink in water, you will have to drown them using pressure. Half an hour of this “bath” and all the bitterness from the eggplant goes away. All that remains is to rinse them, squeeze out excess water and proceed directly to cooking. You can soak whole eggplants in salt water, but then the exposure time increases to a couple of hours. As for the amount of salt, a tablespoon per liter of water is enough.

Cook eggplants without bitterness

The most basic way is to simply peel them by removing the skin from the eggplants. But such “naked” eggplants are not suitable for every recipe. In this case, there is another alternative way to remove the bitterness from the “little blue ones”. You need to cut the eggplant into slices, place the slices on a plate and place in the freezer for 4 hours.

Those who don’t want to wait four hours can try the third method - remove the seeds from the eggplant. If you look closely, you will see that eggplant seeds are very similar in appearance to pepper seeds. They, of course, are not so spicy, but it is interesting that seeded eggplant will no longer need any manipulations with salt and the freezer. You just need to cut the eggplant lengthwise and scrape out as many seeds as you can with a spoon.

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The fourth method is to soak eggplant pieces in milk. You need to immerse the eggplants in milk for at least half an hour, and press on top with a press. After half an hour, remove the eggplants and squeeze them thoroughly with a paper towel.

But what should you do if you are unlucky and bought bitter eggplants? How to cook eggplants without being bitter?

Just remove the skin.

Soak in cold water. If cut - for half an hour, whole - for two hours. By adding salt to the water (two tablespoons per liter of water), you can quickly achieve the desired effect.

Slice and sprinkle with salt. After half an hour, squeeze out the released juice.

Alternatively, you can sprinkle the chopped vegetables with salt and pour boiling water over them. After three to five minutes, drain the water and dry the eggplants.

If the recipe calls for whole fruits (say, you are going to stuff them), you can throw the eggplants into salted boiling water for a couple of minutes.

Or do this. Cut off the ends and place the top on a centimeter-thick layer of salt. After half an hour, turn it over and put it upside down, also for 30 minutes. If the recipe allows, cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and place on salt. Just rinse thoroughly afterwards to remove excess salt!

And one more little secret. Eggplants have the unpleasant property of absorbing vegetable oil like a sponge when frying. Soaking also helps to cope with the problem of excess fat. The fruits are cut, soaked in salt water for 20 minutes and squeezed. Then they will take significantly less oil.

For clarity, we suggest watching this video.