Eggplant

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Eggplant --Vegetarian's Delight

Eggplant is a key ingredient in Italian, Middle Eastern and Asian dishes.

Eggplant is popular in Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Indian, Creole, Greek and French recipes.

Eggplant is a vegetarian's delight, as its meaty firm texture is an excellent substitute for meat in many dishes.

Photo by rdesai (Flickr)

"Always cook eggplant
before eating."

Italian Eggplant 

Italian eggplant resemples the common purple eggplant, except it is much smaller. mIt's skin is thinner and its flesh more delicate.

Italian Eggplant is available year round.

Selection:
Look for firm eggplants that are heavy for their size with taut, unwrinkled skin. When aqueezed, they should be springy, not spongy. Pits, dents or wrinkles are signs that the eggplant is bitter.

Preperation: Most italian eggplants just require a rinse and a trim of the stem and green cap.

Cooking:
Alwaus cook eggplant before eating. Italian eggplants are a good choice for grilling, stuffing or for forming eggplant rolls wrapped around prosciutto and mozzarella.

"Do not refrigerate
eggplant."

Storage

Eggplanets are very perishable: do not refrigerate. Store them in a cool__not cold__ place in a plastic bag for up to 2 days.

Purple Eggplant 

The most commonly available eggplant is large, cylindrical or pear-shaped, with a glossy, deep-purple skin.

Selection:
Look for firm eggplants that are heavy for their size. Small or medium eggplants are less likely to be bitter.

Preperation
The skin of small eggplants are edible. Large eggplants should be peeled. Eggplant discolors when exposed to air, so either peel right before using or dip pieces in acidulated water. Always cook eggplant before eating.

Salting is recommended to draw out bitter juices, to reduce the moisture content and to prevent the eggplant from absorbing too much oil when cooked. Recipes will vary on the amount of salting required.

Many people slice eggplant, cover it with a sprinkling of salt, place a weighted plate on top, Wait thirty minutes, then rinse it off to remove any bitter flavor. This is optional however, as good eggplants are not bitter.

I Recommend this Book 

I have the 2002 Edition

Dr Richter's Fresh Produce Guide - (2005)

Amazon Price: (as of 11/28/2009) Buy Now

"Eggplant is available
year round."

Blog Posts About Eggplant 

Sausage Stuffed Eggplant | kitchen cooking food recipes
Cut eggplant in half lengthwise; scoop out pulp, leaving a 1/4" shll. Chop pulp, andset aside. Cook sausage in a large skillet until browned, stirring to crumble; drain off excess drippings. Add chopped eggplant, onion, green ...
Eggplant Paste (Aubergine Paste) Recipe | My Homemade Food Recipes ...
Eggplant Paste (Aubergine Paste) Recipe. Blog of the home food cooking recipes. Homemade food recipes, cooking tips and advises, health food and more @EnjoyYourCooking.com.
Yarning to Write: I am Eggplant
I am Eggplant. Okay--it was great in a 'strategy planned like a military general' kind of way. We took two cars because we agreed to pick up and drop off Alexa (my biological mom) and if we had all gone in one car, it would have meant ...
Eggplant, in Flower « Lovely Plantings
These flowers signal that the eggplant fruits themselves will be arriving. I've had only leaves up until this point, so am very happy about this development! For more information about eggplant, check out this informative site: ...

Sliced Eggplant

Medicine and Food

"Medicine and Food are the Same."

- Neijing The Yellow Emperor's
Classic of Internal Medicine

Eating Your Way to Long Life 

Eggplant is cooling with a sweet flavor. It contains a substance known as glycoalkaloids that is used topically in medicine to treat skin cancers, including basal cell carcinoma. A study done at University of Texas showed that eggplant appears to impede blood cholesterol levels from rising, after the consumption of fatty foods.

Eggplant is a member of the Nightshade family making it relative to tomato, green pepper and tobacco.

Some individuals with arthritis find that abstaining from eggplant and other nightshades reduces their symptoms. They contain solanine, which in large amounts inhibits calcium absorption.

Eggplant is antiseptic, diuretic and hemostatic. It helps clear toxic heat from the body and improves blood circulation. Eggplant is used to relieve colitis, constipation, bleeding hemorrhoids, pain, hypertension, stomach ulcers, swellings, and tumors.

Eggpant & Chinese Medicine 

"To enjoy good health, you must balance yin and yang," says Henry C. Lu, Ph.D., doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, principal of the International College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Vancouver and author of Chinese System of Food Cures.

"Let's say that you have high blood pressure," Dr. Lu says. "There are different types with different causes, but one type is due to the liver being too yang." In that case, Dr. Lu might recommend eating more eggplant, which is not only yin but also can prevent arteriosclerosis.

Chinese System Of Food Cures: Prevention & Remedies

Amazon Price: (as of 11/28/2009) Buy Now

Eggplant Absorbs Oil

Careful, it's spongy texture, causes it to absorb a lot of oil in any recipe (in one experiment, fried eggplant absorbed four times more oil than French fried potatoes).

Classic Ratatouille 

Classic Ratatouille is a harvest of good health and colorful antioxidants in a pot.

You don't have to be a gourmet cook-Disney cartoon rat chef or otherwise-to make this easy meal.

INGREDIENTS

8 - 10 tablespoons olive oil
2 yellow onions, chopped
3 large or 4 small zucchini, sliced into 1/4-inch thick slices
1 large eggplant, sliced into chunks the same size as the zucchini slices
5 large tomatoes, chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Tomato paste, to taste (optional)

care2.com

Eggplant from Flickr Photos 

eat your veggies by SpecialKRB

eat your veggies

IMG_0229 by joannapoe

IMG_0229

Eggplant Parm Finished by pdstahl

Eggplant Parm Finish...

 by Egan Snow

automatically generated by Flickr

Cooking Ratatouille on Video 

Pixar's Ratatouille " Cooking 101 "

A video podcast on how the animators at pixar got cookinglessons to get into their roles as "chefs"

Runtime: 3:33 | 12948 views | 0 Comments

 

automatically generated by YouTube

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Eggplant Curry 

The eggplant dish in this video is a difficult one to get right and takes some practice. If the video is having trouble loading, the direct link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9gJTpOpTIw

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