How to remove bitterness from eggplants before cooking: how to soak

Vegetable growing » Eggplant

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Kira Stoletova

Eggplant belongs to the nightshade family. This vegetable is often used in preparing various dishes, but before cooking, you need to remove the bitterness from eggplants. To prevent eggplants from becoming bitter, several methods are used.

Removing bitterness from eggplants

How to Avoid Bitter Eggplant Dishes

The best vegetables are those grown with your own hands. You know for sure that you did not fertilize them with harmful chemicals. An experienced summer resident will certainly pay attention to varieties of eggplants without bitterness. The varieties Epic F1, Almaz, and F1 Bourgeois are especially popular. The main thing is not to make a mistake when choosing the growing region.

If there is no opportunity for gardening, then you should carefully choose a vegetable in the store. It is better to buy young, smooth, blue ones without putrefactive spots. Before cooking, it is necessary to remove bitterness, especially from old fruits, since it can make itself felt in the finished dish.

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Dark-fruited nightshade, also known as eggplant, is loved by many as a snack or side dish. But before cooking, it is often necessary to remove the bitterness from eggplants before frying - after all, the freshest young fruits do not always end up in our grocery basket.

There are several methods that housewives and professional chefs use. We have selected 7 of the most effective ones for you.

Related to tomatoes and potatoes

Did you know, for example, that eggplant is a berry? This is a nightshade, a close relative of tomatoes. And potatoes, of course. Like potatoes, it is susceptible to attacks by the Colorado potato beetle and late blight, but is not at all as unpretentious in cultivation. Loves warmth, moisture and rich soil. He somehow likes the subtropics more than our middle zone. But Russian breeders and hardworking summer residents managed to adapt to the demands of the sissy, and the “little blue ones” are successfully winning the hearts and stomachs of our compatriots.

Method 1 - using boiling water

Fresh eggplants grown on your own plot with sufficient watering and good care do not need to be processed before frying. You just need to wash and cut them.

But if the vegetables were bought at the market or supermarket, there is a chance that they already have a bitter taste. It is concentrated in the peel and pulp while the eggplant is being transported and lying on the shelf.

To rid a product of bitterness using boiling water, you need to:

cut the pulp into cubes;
place in a colander;
Dip into boiling salted water for 2 minutes;
remove from the water and let it drain;
then cook according to the recipe.

Boiling water helps remove the taste very quickly, but this technique is not suitable for all recipes. It is recommended to use it only for those dishes in which the shape of the cut is not particularly important. There is no need to prepare vegetables in advance in this way - such processing is suitable immediately before cooking.

How to prevent the appearance of bitterness in eggplants in your area

In garden plots, eggplants are usually grown in small quantities, so caring for the plantings of this crop is quite easy to provide. To avoid the bitterness of home-grown eggplants, you need to consider several factors:

Choice of variety. Nowadays, on the shelves of gardening stores, the range of seedless and genetically non-bitter eggplants is simply huge. The main thing is to choose a variety from all of them, taking into account the growing conditions (greenhouse, open ground) and the climatic zone in which the site is located (warm, harsh climate).
Proper care of plantings. Eggplants need, first of all, regular watering with warm, sun-warmed water.
Timely harvesting. It is clear that in large fields where eggplants are grown en masse, it is quite problematic to collect a perfectly ripened, but not overgrown crop in one go. But in summer cottages there is such an opportunity. Therefore, you should not allow the fruits to overgrow, but collect them on time, and then the eggplants will not taste bitter.

Method 2 - in salt water

Expert opinion

Mikhailov Ivan Maksimovich

Furniture maker. Work experience 3 years.

You can soak eggplants in salt whole or in pieces. To prepare a saline solution, use 1 liter of cold drinking water and 1 tablespoon of salt.

It takes at least two hours for the bitterness to leave the whole fruit. It goes away from the pieces in about 30 minutes.

How to do this correctly?

Wash eggplants well before cooking.
Each is cut into round or longitudinal slices, cubes or in another way specified in the recipe.
Place in a bowl of salted water.
Press down from above with pressure so that they do not float up.
Then rinse with fresh water and place on a towel to remove excess moisture.

What to do if eggplants are bitter, and how to avoid this when growing

It happens that you decided to cook eggplant kebab, caviar, salad or other dish, but it turned out to be bitter and unpleasant in taste.

Then gardeners have a question: why is eggplant bitter, the reasons for the bitterness, because the fruits are grown on their own plot? We will learn what factors and violations of agricultural technology can spoil the taste of this crop, how to protect the fruits from bitterness.

Method 3 – in milk

You can soak bitter vegetables, cut into pieces, not only in salt water, but also in milk. The technique is very similar to the previous one:

the vegetable is washed and cut as needed;
place in a container with milk (no need to add salt);
press down from above with pressure so that they do not float up;
after 30-40 minutes, rinse with running water and dry on a towel.

Method 4 - by removing seeds

There is a version that it is the eggplant seeds that are bitter, because their shape resembles pepper seeds.

When there is no time for soaking, cooks remove the seeds:

the vegetable is washed well;
cut lengthwise with a sharp knife;
scrape out the seeds with a spoon (as far as possible);
rinse and dry with paper towels.

Method 6 – dry

If you don’t have the desire or time to soak vegetables, the bitterness can be removed with salt. It is not distributed in water, but directly on eggplant slices. For this:

Ripe vegetables are washed and cut into pieces;
Add salt to a flat container or glass board and place slices on top;
their surface is also sprinkled with salt;
When the juice appears on the cut, the vegetables are ready for cooking - they are rinsed or wiped with a paper towel.

For this case, it is better to use coarse sea or rock salt. Small ones can be completely absorbed into the pulp and make the dish over-salted.

other methods

How can you remove the bitterness from eggplants before cooking?

Other effective methods are used for this:

The chopped vegetables should be salted, and a paper napkin should be placed on top and sprinkled with milk. All this should be pressed down with a weight, and after 10 minutes the product will be without bitterness. The juice is removed with paper. Vegetables just need to be wiped dry.
You can also remove the bitterness of eggplants with boiling water. Pour it in for 5 minutes, and there is no need to salt the water. Then the liquid should be drained and the vegetables should be dried.
You can boil the eggplants. This method is best used in cases where the shape of the vegetable is not important. Place the chopped cubes into boiling water and boil for 2 minutes. Then they are taken out with a colander, and after the water has drained, you can start cooking.
The bitterness is eliminated after removing the seeds. If you have time and desire, you can remove them.

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.

Delicious seasonal vegetables such as eggplants are fried in slices, baked, or prepared as stews or caviar. To prevent them from becoming bitter, it is better to process them before cooking. Now you can do this using one of seven simple and effective ways.

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.

Why are eggplants bitter? Causes. What to do to prevent eggplants from becoming bitter?

Today we will talk about the main reasons for the appearance of bitterness in eggplants. Since we are talking about this, I think it would not be amiss to recall two more “related” articles on a similar topic. The first of them will tell you about the reasons for the bitterness of lettuce (here it is), and the second about why cucumbers are bitter. As for eggplants, they can sometimes taste bitter too. In this case, it is quite difficult to correct the situation. You just need to know why they are bitter, and in the future eliminate the main mistakes at the stage of selecting seeds and when growing them. Then you will certainly be able to avoid this, and your fruits will not taste bitter. Now, let's understand the reasons.

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

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

Method one, “bald”

Just remove the skin.

Method two, “wet”

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.

Method three, “salty”

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.

Alternative ways to remove 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.

When you take the eggplant slices out of the freezer, simply squeeze out the liquid and the bitterness will go away. But keep in mind that such eggplants quickly lose their shape when cooked and turn into puree.

Expert opinion

Mikhailov Ivan Maksimovich

Furniture maker. Work experience 3 years.

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.

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.

Eggplants, or blue ones, as people are accustomed to calling them, are a vegetable from the nightshade family. Housewives use this appetizing product to prepare various dishes - salads, spicy and salty snacks, vegetable caviar, side dishes for meat dishes, eggplant balls and cutlets.

Eggplants are often used for winter preparations, because delicious canned vegetables are always appropriate on an everyday or holiday table. When preparing various dishes, it is important that the bitterness that is characteristic of some blues is removed from the product.

Options for removing bitterness

There are several ways to get rid of bitterness in eggplants.

Soaking

To remove bitterness, the fruits are soaked in salt water. First, the vegetables are cut into circles, cubes or cubes, depending on the cooking recipe, then dipped in a salty solution. Give 1 tablespoon of salt per liter of water. Then the blue ones are thrown into a sieve or colander to drain the remaining juice.

How long should you soak eggplants in salt water? It all depends on the condition of the pods. The older the vegetable, the longer it takes to soak. For young eggplants, half an hour is enough, but for old fruits – at least an hour. During this time, the vegetables will release juice and completely get rid of bitterness.

Sprinkling with salt

You don’t have to soak the eggplants. Many housewives use another method of “processing” the blue ones, sprinkling the sliced eggplant with salt. After 30 minutes, the blue ones are washed under cold water, drained in a colander and the remaining water is allowed to drain.

Freezing

There is another way to remove bitterness from eggplants - by. First, the blue ones are peeled, then cut into slices or cubes, placed in a plastic bag and placed in the freezer for four hours. Then the sliced eggplant is thawed and the resulting juice is squeezed out. True, after such treatment, the little blue ones quickly lose their shape and turn into a puree-like mass during the heat treatment process.
The little blue ones give off bitterness well if you put them in milk for half an hour and put them under pressure. After this time, the fruits need to be slightly squeezed.

You can do it differently, bypassing manipulation with saline solution or freezing, removing the seeds in the fruits. The fruits are cut into two longitudinal parts and cleared of seeds using a teaspoon.

The ability to cook deliciously, like any other talent, develops and comes with experience. And every housewife has her own secrets. It never hurts to add more recipes to your collection. Especially if the topic concerns dishes from “capricious” vegetables and fruits, for example, eggplants.

How to choose the right eggplants

The correct choice of eggplants is an important stage in the preparation of any dish, because depending on how blue they look and how they feel, the degree of their bitterness differs. It is not the pulp that is bitter, but the skin of nightshades, because it contains a special substance - solanine.

In large quantities, this element can be harmful to humans and can cause poisoning or disease. Immediately after eggplants are picked from the garden, they have virtually no bitterness.

After lying on the counter for a considerable time, a large amount of solanine is produced. How to choose eggplants without bitterness:

Give preference to young fruits. If you can buy fresh eggplants at the market, take them. You can cook vegetables immediately after harvesting without using special methods to remove the bitterness - it won’t be there.
Examine the stalk of the blue ones. It should be elastic, and the leaves adjacent to the vegetable should be green and alive. Avoid eggplants with dry leaves.
Choose blue ones with a smooth surface; it should squeak slightly when you run your finger over it. Avoid eggplants with 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. These foods contain the highest amount of antioxidants.

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Causes of bitter taste

Why are eggplants bitter? The blue ones contain large amounts of solanine. This is a toxic substance that gives the fruits a bitter taste. The longer the blue ones ripen, the more bitter and poisonous they will taste.

Today, many hybrid varieties have been bred whose fruits do not contain bitterness, for example, “White Night”, “Taste of Mushrooms” or “Green”.

Proven ways to get rid of bitterness in eggplants

There are several proven ways to remove bitterness from eggplants. You can do this by salting, soaking nightshades, freezing them, soaking them in milk, or peeling them.

The method must be chosen individually, depending on what dish you want to prepare. For example, peeling involves completely removing the skin, while some recipes require it.

Below you will learn some simple methods for removing bitterness that are sure to make eggplant dishes even more delicious.

Salt treatment

There are two main ways to remove bitterness from blues. Both of them involve the use of ordinary iodized salt, which is found in every housewife.

The first is called “dry”, since during its implementation there is no soaking. You can season eggplants cut into slices, circles, and cubes with salt.

How to properly carry out salt treatment without water:

Prepare the food: wash the eggplants well, wipe with a napkin, cut, remove the tails. Take coarse salt. Large granules are necessary due to the porosity of the blue skin: if the salt is too fine, the skin will absorb it, and the future dish may become over-salted because of this.
Take a deep bowl and place chopped or whole vegetables in it. Cover them with salt. It will take about twenty minutes for the eggplants - then drops of liquid will appear on their surface.
After the required time has passed, wash the eggplants, dry them and use them for further cooking.

Soaking in water

The “wet” method of salt processing of eggplants is also extremely popular. It's great if you don't want to cut the blues before processing, but want to remove the bitterness while they're still whole. To carry out this procedure, you will need pressure that will not allow the nightshades to float. How to properly soak fresh bitter eggplants in salt water:

Fill a pan with clean, cold, salted water. One tablespoon of salt is enough for a liter of water. Cut the eggplants into circles, cubes or slices, or you can leave them whole.
Place the vegetables in the pan. The blue ones will not completely sink in the water, so you will need to install a pressure on top: this can be a wooden round board the size of the pan, with a stone on top.
Keep the eggplants in salted water for about thirty minutes. If you put in whole vegetables, the de-bittering procedure will take several hours.
Rinse the vegetables after the required time, squeeze them lightly. You can use nightshades for cooking.

The easiest way to peel blue ones

If you don't want to spend a lot of time handling the eggplants, or the recipe calls for peeled vegetables, you can get rid of the bitterness by peeling the blue ones. To do this, you will need a special vegetable peeler or a sharp knife.

By removing the peel, you will remove the source of bitterness - the solanine it contains. How to peel blue ones:

Wash the eggplants thoroughly and wipe with a dry towel to remove moisture.
Using a vegetable peeler or knife, carefully remove a thin layer of skin.
Chop or grate vegetables depending on the recipe for later cooking.

Another alternative way to make blues less bitter is to leave them in the freezer for a few hours. To do this, rinse the product, dry it, and cut it into slices.

Place them on a plate and leave to freeze for four hours. When the required amount of time has passed, remove the blue ones and squeeze out the excess liquid.

They are perfect for making eggplant puree or caviar, because they quickly lose their shape when cooked.

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Ways to get rid of bitterness

This vegetable is added to a variety of dishes. It is also often prepared for the winter. Therefore, it is important that when preparing dishes, cooks or housewives know how to rid eggplants of bitterness.

Many ulinars know how to remove bitterness from eggplants. This is done by salting, freezing, peeling or soaking in solutions. They select the method individually, focusing on what dish will be prepared. If you use peeling, it requires complete removal of the skin, and some recipes require this. If you come across a bitter vegetable, cooks often use salt to neutralize it. It is used in 2 types: as a solution or dry method.

Soaking in saline solution

One of the most popular methods. It is suitable if you need to quickly soak whole fruits. To do this you will need a bowl or large container and some pressure. This will allow the vegetables not to float to the surface and completely soak them in the solution.

To carry out soaking, follow the sequence of actions:

Cold water is poured into the container. For 1 l. add 40 g of table salt.
The fruits are placed in a bowl. To reduce the procedure time, the vegetable is cut into pieces.
To ensure that the eggplants are completely immersed in the solution, a pressure is built. To do this, the fruits are covered with a flat container, and a heavy object is placed on it - a 5 liter bottle or a jar.
Soak the culture in salted water for 30-45 minutes. The period varies depending on the number of fruits. Large whole fruits require about 2 hours to soak.
Processed eggplants are washed under running water. Place on a plate so that excess liquid simply drains away.

Sprinkling with salt

Chop the eggplants into pieces before soaking.

A simple method using coarse salt. To do this, choose any type of salt:

With this processing, coarse salt is preferable to fine salt, because the structure of the pulp is porous. To carry out the procedure correctly, the fruits are washed and chopped into pieces: slices, circles, cubes. Before ridding eggplants of bitterness using this method, the fruits should be dried.

Take a deep dish, place vegetables and sprinkle with salt. Then mix and lay them out in layers. Keep them for 20-30 minutes. When liquid appears on the surface of the fruit, the procedure is over - the vegetables are washed and blotted with napkins or a towel.

The benefits and harms of blue ones

Expert opinion

Mikhailov Ivan Maksimovich

Furniture maker. Work experience 3 years.

Eggplant is a healthy product that can become an important part of a person’s balanced diet. Nightshades contain many beneficial vitamins and microelements necessary for the body.

For example, they contain vitamins C, B, PP, substances such as magnesium, calcium, pectin, potassium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, and fiber. Useful properties of blue:

Helps cope with cigarette addiction. Thanks to vitamin PP or nicotinic acid, the absence of cigarettes will be much easier to bear.
Promotes weight loss. The low calorie content of blueberries and their vitamin-rich composition make them an indispensable product in the diet of those losing weight.
Removes toxins and excess liquid. This happens thanks to the fiber contained in vegetables.
Stimulates digestion and removes cholesterol. This is facilitated by the pectin content in nightshades.

The only harm that blue organisms can cause is associated with the solanine content in the skin of the vegetable crop. This alkaloid in large quantities can become poisonous, causing poisoning, accompanied by the following symptoms - nausea, vomiting, fatigue, fever, general malaise.

Solanine is mainly found in old fruits. Milk, egg whites, and mucous soups will help neutralize the alkaloid after poisoning.

Why are eggplants bitter?

Bitterness in vegetables is caused by a large amount of toxic alkaloid - solanine . In large quantities it is a real poison. Most often, the accumulation of this substance occurs in overripe fruits. But this is far from the only reason - we’ll tell you about them all in order.

Late harvest

If you do not harvest on time, the skin of the fruit begins to become rough and acquires a yellowish tint. The pulp of such eggplants becomes bitter. Therefore, harvest vegetables when their seed part is still light - 40-45 days after the ovaries appear on the plant.

Weather changes

With sudden changes in air temperature, eggplants develop a bitter taste. Therefore, if the weather in the region is changeable, then it is better to grow this crop in a greenhouse.

Mistakes when watering

Another reason why eggplants are bitter is dry soil . In sunny weather, drying out of the soil for growing this crop is unacceptable. Water the plantings with warm water (about +25°C) every other day. And do this strictly in the first half of the day.

Varietal features

In nature, there are varieties that will taste bitter no matter how you grow them - this is their feature . Therefore, before purchasing seeds, study the description of the crop you are going to plant.

Choose proven varieties , for example:

You will find even more varieties of this crop that do not have bitterness at the end of the article.

Video

In order for eggplants to be tasty in the chosen dish, removing the bitterness from them is an important procedure before starting cooking. To do this, you can pickle the cut fruits for a while, soak them in water, freeze them for several hours, or simply peel them.

For those who are doing this for the first time, it is important to know how to properly remove bitterness and how long it will take. In the video below you will learn how long it is necessary to soak the little blue ones so that they stop being bitter, and what other method exists to quickly eliminate bitterness.

Watch interesting videos from experienced chefs:

How long to soak eggplants to remove the bitterness?

How to quickly remove bitterness from little blue ones

The elegant taste of a dish prepared from eggplants is spoiled by a specific bitterness. The peculiarity of taste characteristics appears from the growing conditions, like cucumbers.

If you fail to grow according to the rules, the result will be disappointing. Bitterness is not a hindrance to real professionals in the kitchen.

It can be removed from a vegetable in several ways. For each method you choose, you should prepare.

Be sure to wash it from dust and top dirt, cut off the tail. If necessary, pre-cut.

Other methods

There are other ways to make eggplant taste good. Housewives use:

Also read:

How to clean king prawns

Freezing. The fruits - whole or cut - are placed in the freezer for several hours. After this, the vegetables are pulled out and squeezed, getting rid of the water. This helps remove all the bitterness. This method will not work if it is important to preserve the shape of the vegetables - after the procedure they will become like puree.
Milk. The cut pieces of eggplant are salted, a napkin is placed on them, milk is poured on top and covered with a towel. After ten minutes, the towel is removed and the fruits are dried.
Warm water. Fill it with water at a temperature of 85-90 degrees for a short time, then drain it and dry the vegetables.
Boiling water. The blue ones are cut, thrown into boiling water and cooked for about a couple of minutes. Then take it out and dry it well. This method will quickly prepare vegetables for cooking.
Cleaning. Since solanine, which gives a bitter taste, is contained in the skin, you can get rid of it by removing the skin. This easy method will allow you to bring the eggplant to the desired state.
Disposal of seeds. An equally quick way is to remove seeds from vegetables, which even look like hot peppers. The vegetable will not taste bitter without them - no soaking or salting is required. All you need to do is divide the vegetable in half and scoop out all the seeds with a spoon.

The bitterness will go away if you pour warm water over the eggplants.

Sprinkling with salt

Similar variants of this method include rubbing the slices with salt. The same effect will happen if you put the circles in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and stir.

For all tips using salt, use regular table salt. The use of sea water is expressly prohibited. You cannot use small ones, such as “extra”. The grains should be as large as possible. This way they will remove the liquid from the pulp, and the vegetable itself will not be saturated with salt. Otherwise, the dish will be very salty.

Soaking in water

Pour salt into a large container with cold water. One tablespoon of salt is required per liter.

Place whole or cut eggplants into water. To prevent them from floating up, they need to be drowned using a saucer or jar.

The holding time for small pieces is from 20 to 30 minutes. For whole vegetables it will take longer, from 1 to 1.5 hours.

Some housewives leave it in brine overnight. After soaking, rinse under running cold water.

This method is very good for preparing dishes that require a slice shape. It is recommended to use before frying. In this case, the eggplant will not be over-salted and will absorb less oil.

There is an alternative way to soak in milk:

Salt the chopped vegetables and place on a plate.
Place a paper towel or large napkin on top and lightly sprinkle with milk.
Place a weight on top for 10 minutes. The released juice along with the milk is absorbed by the napkin. All that remains is to rinse off any discharge after the procedure.

What to do with eggplants before heat treatment

Now you can begin the process of getting rid of the unpleasant taste from the pulp. There are two ways to remove the bitterness of eggplants: dry and wet.

In the first option, you need to remove the seeds. Professional chefs say that this will be enough to remove the bitterness. If there is already not enough pulp, and you don’t want to bother with the seeds, then you can simply salt the chopped fruits. Then you need to cover them and leave for an hour and a half. Salt will draw out the bitter juice.

With the second option, you need to know how to soak eggplants. This can be done in two ways: in milk or in brine. So, add a tablespoon of salt per liter of water. There is no need to salt the milk. Pour in the prepared pulp and place a plate on top so that the eggplants do not float. Leave for 2-3 hours. Then drain the liquid and place the vegetables in a colander. While you sauté the roast, excess moisture will drain off.