Eggplant Salads - General Cooking Principles
“Blue” - as many eggplants affectionately call eggplants. They reign on our tables from mid-summer until almost the very end of autumn. Many associate eggplants with vegetables, but few know that they have nothing to do with them. Yes, yes, so familiar to us eggplants do not belong to the vegetables, but are the most berries. An amazing fact, isn't it?
Ancient India is considered their ancestral homeland, where eggplants were cultivated by humans for food. In the Caucasus, they are widely consumed with other vegetables and meat in fried or stewed form. In our country, they appeared relatively recently and, unfortunately, are not used as often for culinary purposes as we would like. And in vain! After all, eggplants have a very unusual savory taste and are combined with a huge number of ingredients. In addition, in nutritional value and beneficial properties, they are superior to many vegetables. Yes, they are harmful and require advance preparation to eliminate all bitterness. So what? Believe me, this easy drawback is more than compensated by the unusually tasty dishes prepared from our today's “hero” - eggplant.
From these healthy pseudo-vegetables you can make a huge variety of dishes. In our case, we limit ourselves to eggplant salads as the most useful and best 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 marinated for a long time, and only after this treatment can our eggplants be used as the main raw material for salads.
Eggplant Salad - Food Preparation
So, let's look at a few recommendations on how to choose eggplants and prepare them correctly. Before buying, inspect the fruit: they should not have any foreign stains, dents or scratches. Their skin should be perfectly smooth. When mechanically acting on the surface of an eggplant, for example with a finger, evaluate its structure. If the eggplant and gives in to pressure, then only under strong pressure. We need such a “vegetable”, a little unripe. Now our task is to “expel” solanine (a substance that gives bitterness) out of eggplants. To do this, peel the eggplant, cut into slices no more than 1 cm thick and sprinkle with salt. We leave them in this condition for about an hour, after which we simply rinse them under running cold water. An alternative to this method is ordinary salt water, in which eggplants should be soaked for about half an hour.
Eggplant Salad - Best Recipes
Recipe 1: Korean Eggplant Salad
This is a light vegetable appetizer, which must be cooked a few hours before serving, so that each piece in the salad can well marinate and acquire a rich taste. We will use only vegetables as main components.
Ingredients:
- two eggplants (preferably slightly unripe)
- two carrots
- two onions
- two sweet peppers
- one table. spoon apple cider vinegar (6%)
- soy sauce 1 table. l
- five tablespoons of vegetable oil
- salt
Cooking Method:
Eggplants cut into thin semi-circles, sprinkle profusely with salt, leave for about an hour and rinse. Then fry them in hot oil until golden brown. We clean the carrots and cut them into semicircles, and the onions with half rings. Peppers cleaned of seeds and cut into strips. Mix all the vegetables and add fried eggplants to them.
Next, prepare the salad dressing by mixing vegetable oil, vinegar and soy sauce in a separate bowl. After that we salt the dish, fill it up, stir everything thoroughly, close the lid and remove it in a cool place (refrigerator) for 9-24 hours. Do not forget while periodically shaking our salad.
Recipe 2: Eggplant Salad with Mushrooms
An amazing dish, all the ingredients of which are stacked in layers. Roasted eggplants melted in your mouth, sprinkled with garlic, fried champignons with onions, stewed carrots, and tomato slices on top - all components perfectly complement each other and combine in a very tasty and satisfying salad!
Ingredients:
- two or three small eggplants
- champignon mushrooms 350 gr.
- 4 medium carrots
- tomatoes 5 pcs.
- 2 onions
- two cloves of garlic
- One Art. lie mayonnaise - for frying - vegetable oil
- a pinch of black pepper
- salt and a sprig of parsley
Cooking Method:
1. My mushrooms, cut into plates, onions - half rings, peel carrots and rub it on a grater. We cut off the eggplant tail and a thin layer with a knife, remove the skin from them.
2. Cut the eggplants into circles and fill them with salt. Mushrooms boil for 10 minutes, then throw them in a colander.
3. Fry the onion (1 head) with mushrooms in hot oil. We spread roast. Then, in the same pan, pass the 2nd onion head with the carrot (first fry the onion, then throw the carrot, pour 50 ml of water and simmer for about 15 minutes).
4. Fry the eggplants on both sides. Chop the garlic finely, cut the tomatoes into slices and start preparing the salad, which we will lay out in layers on a flat plate:
1 layer - eggplants + sprinkle with garlic
2 layer - half roasted carrots with onions
3 layer - mushrooms with onions
4 layer - the remaining carrots
5 layer - we lay out the tomatoes
We add a little salt to the last layer, smear with mayonnaise and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley.
Recipe 3: Eggplant Salad with Cheese
Very tasty snack, which consists of juicy tomatoes, eggplant and cheese (preferably Feta or Adygei). All ingredients are perfectly combined and together create a very harmonious dish.
Ingredients:
- 4 medium eggplants
- 4 ripe tomatoes
- 200 gr. cheese
- 2 chicken eggs
- a pair of onions
- Apple vinegar
- soy sauce
- mayonnaise light or low-fat sour cream
- olive oil
- pepper and salt
Cooking Method:
Beat the eggs with salt and pepper. Eggplant cut into half rings and leave in egg marinade for 20 minutes. Thus, the pieces will put the juice, which will be bitter. Onions cut into half rings and pickle in a solution of apple cider vinegar and water (50 to 50). Fried eggplants are fried on both sides. Cut the tomatoes into cubes and mix them with the cooled eggplant. Squeeze the onions from the marinade and complement them with the salad, also three grated cheese. Prepare a sauce of mayonnaise (sour cream) and soy sauce in a ratio of 1: 1 and fill the salad with the mixture. All thoroughly mixed. The original dish is ready!
Recipe 4: Eggplant Salad with Chicken
The main characters of this salad are chicken and eggplants, which together create an extraordinary composition, and a small pickled cucumber will add a touch 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 cup of sour cream
- a tablespoon of lemon juice
- half tea lodge. mustard
Cooking Method:
Eggplants peeled, cut into slices and passe them in vegetable oil with the addition of basil. Chicken, cucumber, carrots and potatoes cut into cubes, chop the greens. Vegetables and greens mixed with fried eggplant with basil. Cooking dressing from sour cream, mustard and lemon juice. Fill the mixture with our salad. Tasty, original and quite simple. Eat on health!
Eggplant Salads - useful tips
- “Old” eggplants are very hard to peel, so we advise you to pre-scald them with boiling water. This manipulation will greatly facilitate the process. But still too over-ripe fruits are absolutely not suitable for making salads;
- Eggplant is a dietary food product, but during the frying process they absorb a lot of fat. If you do not want to hurt the figure, soak the fruits before frying in salt water, and not just sprinkle them with salt. “Vegetables” lying in the liquid will not absorb as 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 amount of nicotine, but not the same as in a cigarette. “Eggplant nicotine” is in a complex mix, does not cause addiction and does not harm health, unlike its tobacco counterpart, but significantly reduces the cravings of people who take the “true path”.
