Do I need to salt eggplant before cooking it?
Do I need to salt eggplant before cooking it?
Sprinkling salt over eggplant slices before cooking them draws out the vegetable's moisture. It's a process known as "degorging".
Larger, older eggplants have brown seeds that contain a bitter liquid. Salting eggplants removes some of this liquid and improves their flavor. In general, it's not necessary to salt smaller eggplants since they have fewer seeds than larger eggplants.
Larger eggplants also tend to become soft and "melty" when cooked, so salting them before cooking leads to firmer, more leathery cooked texture. (Leathery in a good way, we think.)
To salt an eggplant, slice it and generously season the slices with kosher salt. Let them sit until you can see the liquid coming to the surface, 20-30 minutes. Rinse the slices well and pat them dry. It's also a good idea to use half as much salt as the recipe calls for (unless the recipe takes into account the fact that the eggplant has been salted).
Related Tip: How to cut an eggplant into slices (Cookthink)
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How to cut eggplant into slices
How to cut eggplant into slices
For most dishes, eggplant needs to be sliced before it's cooked. There are two basic cuts - rounds, which are great for almost every dish, and planks, which work particularly well for layered dishes like moussaka or vegetable lasagnas.
When choosing eggplants, reach for the smallest ones you can find. Their flesh is usually more tender and less fibrous than the older, larger ones.
Round slices are the most basic cut. They're great for grilling, broiling, and traditional dishes like eggplant parmesan. Remember that eggplant loses moisture and shrinks when cooked. To compensate, cut the raw eggplant into pieces about twice as large as you want the cooked pieces to be.
Lengthwise slices are good for grilling and layered dishes where you want the eggplant to have the most surface area. To make them, first stand the eggplant upright on its end and slice away a section of the peel. This isn't a must, but it gives the end slices more fleshy surface area to take on color and flavor when cooked.
Then just slice down the length of the eggplant to make slices as thick or thin as you like. You can slice away a section of skin on the other side of the eggplant when you're finished slicing.
Related Article: Do I need to salt eggplant before cooking? (Cookthink)
Related Article: How to cube an eggplant (Cookthink)
Video: How to make eggplant salad (Handmade Kitchen)
