Roasted Eggplant With Tahini, Pine Nuts, and Lentils Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should I soak eggplant before roasting? ›

Salting versus brining

To salt, just slice the eggplant into rounds, scatter 1 teaspoon of salt on top, leave for 30 minutes, then pat dry. Brining (soaking in salted water) will do the same job but also make the flesh super creamy.

A useful tip to prevent sogginess and greasiness is to salt sliced or diced eggplant and let it sit for an hour.

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).

In an ideal world, Chris adds, you should toss the cut eggplant in a bowl of oil to get a chance to cover every side of it. In Sarah Jampel's eggplant and ricotta sandwich, you brush the eggplant slices with oil before cooking them in a nonstick skillet, and then brush the other side before flipping. Smart!

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Brush both sides of eggplant slices with oil, and place in a single layer on two or more baking sheets. Bake until undersides are golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes, then turn and bake until other sides are lightly browned.

Method. Prick the aubergines, then carefully blacken them over a direct flame on the hob (or under the grill), turning with tongs until soft inside.

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.

Not cooking it in enough fat.

The flesh of eggplant is like a sponge — it will immediately soak up any liquid it touches. Drizzle a spoonful of olive oil over cubes before roasting them and you'll see that it's already soaked through the flesh before the baking sheet even gets into the oven.

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.

Why is my baked eggplant tough? ›

Undercooking It. Depending on variety and size, and how they are cut, eggplants take 15 to 25 minutes to fully cook. Undercook them and you'll be left with a bitter-tasting veggie that has the texture of a cotton ball, says Norton.

Selecting Eggplant

Most supermarkets carry one type of eggplant, the globe variety, with Thai, Japanese, and even fairytale eggplant regularly available at local markets from July to October. Any of these varieties work well when roasted — just make sure you're picking a good eggplant from the start.

It only affects texture… It helps draw out moisture from the eggplant. You don't have to salt eggplant though, it depends on the texture your looking for. Salting gives it a more creamy texture when cooked and not salting helps the eggplant hold up and be a little firmer after cooked.

Salting eliminates bitter flavors that come from storing your eggplants too long or using older eggplants. Today's eggplants may be sweeter, but they still have some bitter liquid inside, especially if they are not fresh. Fried eggplant is crispier and more savory when it's been pre-salted.

I tend to soak the slices in a bowl of water with a couple of tablespoon of salt for about 30-45 minutes. It doesn't have to do with bitterness, but I find that in doing this, the fried eggplant turns out less greasy," Jenkins says.

Not necessarily; it depends on what you're looking for in the finished dish. Though salting works when you want the eggplant to be creamy and tender — such as with parmigiana — in those cases where you want the eggplant to retain its shape and have a slightly firmer texture — such as ratatouille — you can skip it.

Soak it in milk.

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.

However, if you can't get your head around cooking eggplant without salting it, here's how: sprinkle the cubed eggplant with 1 tsp salt, toss, leave in colander for 30 minutes. Rinse then thoroughly pat dry, toss with oil and pepper (NO SALT), roast per recipe.