To get a low-fat, hearty and bright dish from eggplants, we suggest baking them. This recipe with step by step photos clearly testifies to an appetizing and tasty dish.
Recipe content:
- How to remove bitterness from eggplants?
- Ingredients
- Step by step cooking
- Video recipe
Baked eggplant with tomatoes is a cold, light and tasty appetizer that can be made for a festive feast, or cooked for a picnic. Such an appetizer is combined with any dishes, both meat and fish. Eggplants are soft and juicy, and tomatoes add a spicy light sourness to the dish. During the period of fresh vegetables, it is advisable to give preference to such healthy and easy recipes.
How to remove bitterness from eggplants?
Eggplant is a wonderful vegetable of the nightshade family. It pleases with color, taste, and roundness of forms. There are hundreds of recipes for dishes from them, but in each it is recommended to remove the bitterness from it before cooking the vegetable. Of course, this advice does not apply to fresh eggplants that are only harvested from the garden. Since there is no such bitterness in fresh eggplants. But old eggplants that have been on the counter for several days can actually taste bitter. For some, the bitterness of eggplant is perceived as spicy, but only such a minority, and the bulk of cooks struggle with it. To remove it, there are several effective ways that have been proven over the years. However, one of the most popular is the use of salt. This method can be used in two ways - "dry" and "wet".
- "Dry" method. The eggplants are cut, sprinkled with salt in the places of the cut and left for 20 minutes. After this time, droplets of liquid form on the surface of the pieces. Ego means that the eggplants already need to be rinsed with water or dried with a towel. It is preferable to use coarse salt in this method, because the structure of eggplant pulp is porous and it can absorb fine salt. And as a result, you can get eggplants that are not bitter, but salted.
- "Wet" way. Sliced eggplants are placed in a saucepan with cold salted water. Since eggplants do not sink, they will have to be submerged under pressure. After 30 minutes, all the bitterness will go away, the eggplants will only have to be rinsed and squeezed out of the excess liquid. You can soak the whole eggplant in this way, but the holding time will increase to 2 hours. Take one tablespoon of salt per liter of water.
- Caloric content per 100 g - 73 kcal.
- Servings - 10
- Cooking time - 30 minutes
Ingredients:
- Eggplant - 1 pc.
- Tomatoes - 2 pcs.
- Hard cheese - 50 g
- Refined vegetable oil - for frying
- Salt to taste
Cooking baked eggplant with tomatoes
1. Wash the eggplants, dry with a paper towel and cut into rings. The thickness of the eggplant rings should be no more than 1 cm, otherwise they will not cook well inside. If desired, remove the bitterness from the eggplant using one of the above methods.
2. Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan and heat well. Then send the eggplants to fry. Season them with salt and fry on both sides until golden brown. Remember that eggplants, like a sponge, absorb a lot of oil, so they will be quite greasy. However, if you are using a Teflon-lined pan, a minimum amount of oil can be used.
3. While the eggplants are roasting, wash and cut the tomatoes into rings. Tomatoes should be the same diameter as the eggplants, so when buying them, choose the right size tomatoes. The "cream" variety is ideal for this.
4. Put the fried eggplants on the dish in which you plan to serve the appetizer on the table.
5. Grate the cheese and sprinkle the eggplant generously with it. Squeeze a little garlic if you like.
6. Top with tomato slices.
7. Grind the tomatoes with grated cheese.
8. Send the snack to bake in the microwave for 2-3 minutes. It is necessary that the cheese only melts, since the eggplants are already ready, and the tomatoes should be almost fresh. You can also use an oven that is preheated to 180 degrees. Eggplants should spend no more than 3-5 minutes in the oven. Decorate the appetizer with herbs and serve it immediately. By the way, if you still have it not eaten, then it can be heated and consumed the next day, but it is also delicious when cold.
See also a video recipe on how to cook eggplant with tomatoes and cheese.
