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07/21/2003 Archived Entry: "Eggplant Cooking Strategies"

The eggplants are coming in from local farms and they present two problems – not even counting which of the many colors should we be buying, and are best for cooking and eating:

How do you select an eggplant?

To salt or not to salt?

Despite the ages old, old-wives tale that there are male and female eggplants and the male of the species is better eating --detected because it has an “outie” blossom end as opposed to the female “innie” blossom end – there is no such thing. I follow different old-wives adivce, learned from my many years of cooking with old wives in Italy.

That is:
Select eggplants that are light for their size. The usual advice with produce, including eggplant, is to choose fruit/vegetables that are heavy for their size. It doesn’t work with eggplant. The lighter eggplants seem to have fewer seeds, and in the five or six years that I have been choosing my speciments, I have yet to get a bitter one.

Salting eggplant is important if you’re frying the eggplant. I don’t believe salting has any impact on bitterness. I have salted and carefully cooked many an eggplant that still remains bitter. However, eggplant can absorb a huge amount of oil when it is fried, and salting it first seems to reduce that absorption. Also, frying eggplant in abundant oil at no less than 375 degrees makes for a less oily result.

This is what Russel Parsons of the Los Angeles Times says in his book How to Read a French Fry: “Adding salt to eggplant that is going to be fried results in a softer, plusher texture, but it has little or no effect on eggplant that will be grilled.”

Anne Gardiner and Sue Wilson, authors of The Inquisitive Cook feel that salting results in eggplant that is both less salty and less greasy. They write “Sprinkling pieces of eggplant with salt … leaves the eggplant pieces with a denser texture, so they tend to absorb less fat.”

I do sprinkle salt on eggplant slices (for instance, for Eggplant Parmigiana) but if I am cooking chunks of eggplant or an irregular shape, I soak them in salted water. Use about a tablespoon of salt for a couple of quarts of water. Let the eggplant pieces soak for 20 minutes to half an hour. The water will turn dark. Discard it and pat the eggplant dry before frying.