Yesterday morning I spent a couple hours working with eggplant. Not exactly my favorite thing in the world, but I'm sure I'll appreciate it this winter when we can enjoy yummy delicious eggplant parmesan without buying it from the store. So here's what I learned: don't follow the online directions.
The directions I found online indicated that you need to blanch the eggplant for 4 minutes before you begin to dehydrate it. And maybe that's fine if you have some big ol' honkin eggplant that you can slice an inch thick. But if you have small eggplants and you blanch the slices for 4 minutes you end up with these weird, kiwi-colored eggplant slices with a texture much like raw fish. Blech. After blanching 2 small eggplants, I stopped that process and tried something different. 2 quarts of water plus 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. I sliced them up, put them in the acidic bath for 20 minutes and then proceeded to dehydrate.
The results this morning are pretty astounding! The blanched eggplant looks like shards of green glass; not very palatable. The acid-bathed eggplant are white, crisp and the overall appearance is much more like fresh eggplant. I think these would be suitable for rehydrating and frying. I *think* they could almost pass for fresh eggplant. The slimy slices would be okay in soups or stews or something, but they are definitely not going to pass for fresh.
So, that's what I learned yesterday.
Can't wait to see what I learn today.
2 comments:
Andrea, I giggled my way through your 'learning experience'! Nobody here likes eggplant, so I guess I'm at an advantage...And after reading what you went through, I'm glad!
Yeah, it was pretty disgusting LOL. I mean, cooling in the ice water, it felt just like a fish or something. {{{shudders}}}
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