DRIED EGGPLANTS FOR THE WINTER AT HOME: THE BEST WAYS AND RECIPES

Blue - for many, this is one of the most beloved vegetables of the summer season.

Southerners do not think of the summer menu without Saute from eggplants and other delicious dishes. Summer flies quickly, and eggplants are stored so long!

But you can try to prepare this beautiful vegetable for the future and enjoy the dishes of blue in the cold season.

In addition to freezing and preservation, there is a method of drying eggplants. This method has long been used in the Mediterranean countries, but in our country the hostesses have already appreciated the convenience of such a vegetable harvesting.

Are eggplant nutrients preserved when dried?

Starting the harvesting for the winter, the hostesses are concerned - will dried eggplants be as useful as their fresh relatives?

Fresh eggplant contains:

pectins and fiber;
organic acids;
vitamins C, P, provitamin A, vitamins of group B;
minerals and natural sugars;
tannins;
proteins fats carbohydrates;
calcium and potassium;
iron, phosphorus and aluminum;
cobalt, sodium, magnesium and copper;
manganese and zinc.

It has been scientifically proven that with proper drying (at a moderate temperature) of vegetables and greens, almost all nutrients are preserved in them. In dried vegetables, the concentration of nutrients increases due to a decrease in the mass of fruits.

Eating eggplants (dried and raw) contributes to:

normal cardiovascular function;
cleansing of the arteries, prevents the development of atherosclerosis;
good kidney function;
cleansing the gastrointestinal tract and biliary tract.

Did you know? The old, overripe blue ones threaten human health, there is a lot of solanine in them - and they can be poisoned if eaten in large quantities. To remove solanine, vegetables are cut into rings and soaked for half an hour in salted water, then washed and safely eaten.

Which eggplant is better to choose for drying

To ensure that the drying process does not take long, choose eggplants of the same size and the same degree of ripeness. It is best to choose young fruits, they have a softer skin, juicier flesh and not fully formed (softer and softer) seeds. The skin of the selected fruit should be clean, without damage and stains in color, pale purple color.

Check out the varieties of eggplant Black Prince, Epic, Prado, Diamond, Valentine.

How to prepare before drying

Before drying, eggplants are well washed under running water, dried skin using a kitchen towel, cut the stem and the "ass" of the vegetable, then cut into the most convenient way for the hostess. When cutting it is necessary to remember that regardless of the configuration of cutting, the thickness of the piece should not exceed 1 cm.

Some housewives prefer to remove the skin from eggplants before drying, explaining that without a skin, the vegetable does not taste bitter. Such actions are not quite reasonable, because the skin of blue contains a lot of necessary substances and minerals to man.

How best to chop

From dried eggplants you can cook a lot of dishes. With proper preparation, it is absolutely unnoticeable that dried vegetables were used.

Depending on which dish the food is made for, the way eggplant shreds are selected.

Shredded Dice - used for drying blue ones, from which winter stews, eggplant caviar or saute will be prepared. Before cutting the vegetable is peeled with the help of a peeler from skin. Half an hour before the start of cooking, the required number of dried cubes is poured with boiling water (2-4 times the volume of dry vegetables) and covered with a lid. In 30 minutes the vegetables will absorb enough water to restore. They can be used to prepare dishes according to ordinary recipes (as from fresh vegetables).
Halved - prepared specially as a billet for stuffed winter eggplants. Before drying, vegetables are cut along, with the help of a spoon, seeds and pulp are removed from both halves, leaving only the skin and a layer of pulp near it (up to one centimeter). When drying on a string, such halves are spaced apart from each other at a considerable distance so as not to impede the flow of fresh air. To ensure a constant free space between the vegetable halves, spacers from matches or toothpicks are inserted. Eggplant dried halves are stored, without removing from the thread, in tightly closed jars or boxes. Before stuffing the vegetable blanks they are soaked in freshly boiled water until they swell. The filling for such eggplants can be made from a mixture of minced meat, rice and vegetables in various proportions or other components.
From Italy came the fashion for drying whole eggplants. Whole fruits dry longer than any kind of sliced vegetables, although they can be dried in any of the three known ways. Well-dried eggplants retain their taste, are easily returned to their original condition and are used in the preparation of a large number of dishes (pizza, vegetable pies, snack foods, pickled vegetables, first courses, etc.).
There is another method of drying blue ones, in which vegetables are pre-heat treated. Washed and peeled vegetables are cut into medium-thick rings (0.7 cm -1 cm), placed in a large container and well salted. After that, the eggplants are allowed to stand for 15-20 minutes. Vegetables will make juice, with which bitterness will disappear from the fruit. Next, the eggplants are lightly squeezed and washed. Washed blue ones pour boiling water and leave for 5-7 minutes. After this time, the eggplant rings are taken out of the boiling water using a skimmer, placed in a pan with cold water (for cooling), then poured into a colander or sieve and left until water runs out.
The preliminary preparation is over, then the eggplant rings are placed on the baking sheet and dried in the oven at a low temperature (50-60 ° C). Drying time takes about five to six hours. Before cooking, dry ringlets of blue ones are soaked in hot water for 20 minutes, after which they remove excess moisture using paper napkins. Next, vegetable rings fall in flour or batter and fry in vegetable oil. Roasted rings are laid out on a flat dish, richly sprinkled with grated garlic, pepper, greens and covered with mayonnaise nets or grated cheese on top.
Cutting into fine straws - used for the preparation of winter vegetable salads. Vegetables are washed before cutting, the skin is removed or left (optional). For slicing, you can use a grater for Korean carrots or manually cut long and thin slices. The length of the cut is made arbitrary, and the thickness should not exceed 0.5 mm. Thinly sliced eggplants are dried only in the oven, on a sheet of paper at room temperature or in an electric dryer. With the natural method for complete drying is enough two - three days at a temperature of 22-27 ° C. Dried eggplant straw is stored in bags of natural fabrics (linen, cotton). Before preparing the salad, dry straws are poured with hot water so that the liquid covers it, cover with a lid and leave for 5 minutes. After that, the excess water is drained, and the swollen vegetables are used for cooking.

Important! Eggplant powder can be prepared from the dried blue ones, which is used for breading mushroom and potato zraz, chops, cutlets. Dried eggplant mushroom powder is added to winter soups, sauces and gravies - it adds flavor and thickness to the dish. Blue powder gives food a light, mushroom taste and aroma. To prepare it, you need to pass the dried blue ones through a meat grinder or a blender, the resulting powder is stored in an airtight glass container in a dry place. How to use the powder: it is easy to improve the taste of first courses or sauces; it is enough to add one teaspoon (1 l. Of liquid) to them ten minutes before the end of cooking, in order to brend - you should roll the chops or zrazy in a fragrant powder.

Popular drying methods

Pre-chopped eggplants of any configuration are dried in an electric dryer, oven, or naturally. When choosing a method of drying the hostess is guided only by personal preferences and convenience.

Depending on taste preferences, variety and culture, vegetables can be stored fresh, dried, pickled, pickled, frozen.

Outdoors

With natural drying:

cubes (or another type of eggplant slicing) are laid out in a warm place shaded from the sun on a sheet of white paper and dried for 4-6 days. It is recommended to turn the sliced cubes twice a day (morning and evening). Well-dried vegetables thunder like wood. In whole dried eggplants, when shaking inside, seeds rattle like in a baby rattle .;
cubes (slices, halves, whole vegetables) are strung on a durable cotton thread. The thread should be long so that all the segments fit and the edges of the thread remain free, for which the whole structure is tied to the supports. The thread, with eggplant slices hanging on it, is placed outdoors in a draft. In a city apartment, such a bundle with drying vegetables is placed on the open balcony. Vegetables should not get direct sunlight, if the balcony faces south, then bundles of eggplant dryers cover from the sun with newspapers. Blue, strung on a thread, dried for 4-7 days (depending on the weather).

Important! It is not a secret that in the summer period there are a lot of flies and their appetizing smell is attracted by drying fruits and vegetables. Therefore, we recommend covering eggplants that dry in the open air with gauze cloth. Gauze does not prevent the penetration of air and wind to the drying slices.

In the oven

In the oven you can dry whole or halved eggplants, as well as chopped by any convenient hostess in the way (dice, ringlets, plates, straws or bars).

Chopped vegetables are laid out on a dry baking sheet in a single layer. The oven temperature is set at 40-60 ° C, the oven door, in which the drying takes place, is kept slightly ajar (5-10 cm). In the process of drying, evaporation of moisture from vegetables occurs. Ajar door of the oven is needed so that the evaporated moisture in the form of steam is removed from the oven.

Before the end of the drying process, it can take from 3 to 6 hours, it depends on the size of the vegetables that are dried (whole eggplants will dry longer than the chopped bars). At the same time in the oven you can set up to three trays on which the blue ones will dry. The main thing is not to forget to change the baking sheets in some places every half hour, this will ensure the same drying of vegetables at all three levels.

In the electric dryer

For drying eggplants in an electric dryer, no recipes are needed, the drying algorithm is simple: vegetables are washed, if desired, they are cleared of skin and cut into slices, cubes or cubes (if desired). The thickness of the cut slice should not exceed one and a half - two centimeters. The cut pieces are laid out on the trays of electric dryers. Before you load the appliance, refer to the instructions for the maximum weight for each tray, and at what temperature and how to dry eggplants in an electric dryer.

When the download is complete and all vegetables are evenly distributed in the trays - the temperature recommended for dried eggplant is set, and the device is turned on. The electric drier is very convenient to use, since the time required for the vegetables to completely dry is automatically installed in the device, it usually takes 20-27 hours (depending on the model and power of the electric device).

Did you know? Powder-powdered eggplants are used as a therapeutic tool for those who want to quit smoking: when added to food, the blue ones alleviate the smoker's suffering from a lack of nicotine in the body. This is due to the presence of nicotinic acid in vegetables, which enters the body of the sufferer and partially compensates for the acute shortage of nicotine. Eggplant powder copes well with a yellow nicotine coating on the teeth of smoking people. For these purposes, it is mixed in a one-to-one ratio with toothpaste and is brushed daily with this mixture.

How to store dried eggplants at home

After the vegetables have dried, they are cooled to room temperature and laid out in convenient portions for long-term storage. It is possible to store such vegetable drying in well-closed glass jars, in boxes with tight lids made of thick cardboard, in small bags of cotton or linen fabric. Sealed containers with drying can be placed in kitchen cabinets, and fabric bags are hung in a dry room with a moderate temperature (in the pantry).

How to recover for cooking

Dried blue ones lose much weight, the ratio of pulp and liquid is about 1:15. Therefore, before preparing any dish, it is advisable to soak the drying in hot water. Soaking time depends on the size and thickness of dry slices:

if the blue ones are dried intact, then soaking will require hot liquid (2-3 times more than the volume of the dryers) and half an hour of time for soaking.
dried pieces or rings 1-2 cm thick are soaked for 15-20 minutes, the amount of boiling water is about 3 times the volume of the dryers.
for finely chopped dry straws from blue ones, you need 5 minutes to fully swell in boiling water, they are poured with hot water so that the water slightly covers the dry slices.

The excess water remaining after soaking is drained, and the blue ones that have assumed their natural size are used to prepare various dishes.

Some dishes can be prepared without soaking the dryers. These are dishes in which there is a lot of liquid (soups, borscht, stews). In the process of cooking, the drying dishes will absorb the broth and take on a natural size. Some recipes do not accept the use of dry ingredients, as they contain a strict recipe, and swelling vegetables will absorb liquid and the dish will not succeed at all or will turn out to be too dry (cakes, pies and other pastry dishes).

Did you know? Special drying of vegetables and fruits is present in the culinary traditions of many countries. Drying was used in preparations for long sea and land travels, with its help it made stocks of products for the winter since the Middle Ages. Even then, people knew that many useful and nutrients are stored in dried vegetables. They dried everything: apples, pears, cherries, mushrooms, carrots, beets, medicinal herbs, dried meat and fish (since salt was incredibly expensive). More than once such stocks saved people from starvation.

Drying eggplants retains all the necessary nutrients for the human body, which are inherent in this vegetable practically in its original form. Of course, in stores and supermarkets, even in winter you can buy fresh vegetables. But the high cost of these vegetables and their greenhouse origin does not always cause the desire to buy them. If the zealous hostess in the summer has taken care to dry the little blue ones for the future, then how pleasant it will be in the cold winter time to treat home-made fragrant and tasty eggplant stew!