Eggplant Torte Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to cooking eggplant? ›

A useful tip to prevent sogginess and greasiness is to salt sliced or diced eggplant and let it sit for an hour. This helps to draw out moisture. Next, rinse and drain any liquid from the sliced eggplant, then pat dry before cooking. This will further soften the eggplant preventing it from soaking up fat while cooking.

If you are worried that the eggplant might be bitter, slice or cube it, then salt it liberally and allow it to drain for an hour or so before cooking. Putting salt on the eggplant triggers osmosis, which draws out excess moisture and the bitterness along with it.

You mentioned that once they turned out tough and chewy: then they were not cooked fully through. Vegetables are not like meat, which turn rubbery when overcooked. They turn soft rather. Watch out for the opposite as well: Eggplants when cooked for a long time may turn mushy.

Salting: Salting removes excess liquid and some of the bitterness. Today's eggplants are bred for mildness, though, so it's not as important as it used to be (if you are frying eggplant, salting will ensure a creamy texture and rich flavor). This method works for eggplant slices, cubes, or planks.

Many recipes call for salting and rinsing eggplant before cooking it to draw out its bitterness. Brining can be used instead and has the added advantage of helping the eggplant keep its shape when it's cooked, whether your recipe calls for baking, frying, or grilling.

How to prep an eggplant. One of the secrets to cooking tender-but-never-mushy eggplant is salt. First, Stilo cuts her eggplant into the desired shape (rounds, cubes, planks, etc.), and then sprinkles the eggplant evenly with a generous amount of salt.

Not cooking it in enough fat.

The flesh of eggplant is like a sponge — it will immediately soak up any liquid it touches.

Salt the Eggplant

Salting the slices for eggplant Parmesan is not to prevent bitter flavors, but to season the eggplant itself and, at least in my experience, keep the eggplant from sucking up too much of the olive oil from frying.

Soak eggplant slices or cubes in milk for about 30 minutes before cooking. The milk not only tempers the bitterness, but it actually makes for eggplant that is extra creamy, since the vegetable acts like a sponge and soaks up a good amount of milk in its flesh.

Watch for moisture beading up on the eggplant, which is what you want. Rinse the salt off. Run the eggplant under water for a minute or two, making sure you get most of the salt off. Leaving too much salt on will make the final dish too salty.

How do you know when eggplant is cooked enough? ›

When it's cooked, “it should turn fully tender, all the flesh should be somewhat custardy. If you have to, hammer it a bit, knock it around, let it start to collapse.” When you're roasting eggplant, like in YuChen's recipe, “make sure you give them enough space so they can cook evenly,” she says.

Eggplant is about 80 to 90 percent water, so when you put them in the oven they need space to evaporate all that water and caramelize properly," says Covarrubias. Give them a toss halfway through the cooking process to make sure they're cooked evenly, too.

Can You Eat Eggplant Raw? Luckily, the answer is yes! While the leaves and flowers can be toxic, the eggplant itself is safe to consume both raw and cooked, and the compound that some might be sensitive to, solanine, is only toxic when consumed in large quantities.

Why do you soak eggplant in water and vinegar? Soaking eggplant in water and vinegar helps remove some of the vegetable's natural bitterness. This step also helps preserve some of the skin's color so it stays a vibrant purple even after cooking.

Always peeling it before cooking.

If it's an extra-large eggplant, the vegetable could be older and the skin tougher, therefore, it's a smart idea to peel it.