Salting eggplant can reduce bitterness, remove excess water, and make it less permeable to oil during cooking. Only ripe and old eggplants benefit from salting, while fresh ones do not need it. Salting involves peeling, slicing, and sprinkling with salt for 30 minutes.
Aubergines are very popular vegetables that are used in many famous recipes, such as mousakka, ratatouille and baba ghanoush. Preparing an eggplant for cooking is, in many cases, a very simple process. Some cooks prefer to soak it in clean water for some time, while others prefer to salt it. Salting eggplant is believed to reduce its bitterness, remove excess water, and help it absorb less oil during the cooking process. It also makes the eggplants less spongy or firmer.
Not all eggplants need to be salted. Fresh, young eggplants may taste bitter when raw but are not bitter when cooked. Only the ripest and oldest eggplants really benefit from the salting process. Older eggplants have large, hard seeds that can be brown or black, containing acidic juices. These juices are extracted during the sweating or purging process, which improves the taste of the eggplant when cooked.
Another benefit of salting eggplant is that it removes excess water. All the air pockets in the eggplant collapse and it acquires a much denser nature. This makes it less permeable during cooking, preventing it from absorbing a lot of oil during the cooking process. Typically, eggplants are notorious for soaking up huge amounts of oil when fried. Salting the eggplant also helps the slices keep their shapes due to the firmer texture – this is helpful when making dishes like eggplant parmigiana.
If the eggplant is mashed, however, it may not need to be salted at all unless it’s really ripe. Some people won’t salt the eggplant if it’s going to be used in dishes that contain really strong spices. Salting eggplant may also not be necessary when cooked for long periods of time, such as in a stew or casserole.
The salting process usually involves peeling the vegetable and slicing, cubing or squaring it. The cut eggplant can be placed in a colander, generously sprinkled with salt and left for about half an hour or more. At this point, you will see drops of moisture on top of the pieces. They can be dabbed with paper towels until dry. Some cooks place heavy weights on eggplant pieces in the colander. This simultaneously removes bitter juices and excess water; both drain away into a vessel placed below.
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