Recipe: Savory Eggplant Jerky (2024)

FAQs

Do you have to blanch eggplant before dehydrating? ›

Pre-treating vegetables by blanching is recommended to enhance quality and safety.

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.

Cooking it at a high temperature (425 F / 218 C) for enough time (25-30 minutes) to give it a browned exterior and tender interior. Just look at those cubed purple beauties! & Super snack-able!

Most but not all vegetables need to be blanched before they are dried. You can do this by briefly immersing them in boiling water. This blanching step destroys enzymes that would otherwise survive the dehydration process and cause the food to decline in quality over time.

Older recipes call for salting eggplant to draw out the bitter juices, but today's eggplants are less bitter (unless very large), so salting is largely unnecessary. It will, however, help the spongy flesh absorb less oil and crisp up like a dream.

Soaking eggplant in water and vinegar helps remove some of the vegetable's natural bitterness.

CHILLING: Arrange eggplant slices on a plate and put it in the freezer for about 4 hours. When the slices thaw, press out a lot of the water with the palm of your hand, releasing most of the bitterness. The eggplant will fry as if it had been salted, though the freezing will make the flesh fall apart a bit more.

Larger, more mature eggplants can be more bitter, typically because their seeds are larger and seeds tend to hold on to the most bitter flavors.

Under salt

You can put the eggplants in salt as a single step, or do it immediately after soaking in water and vinegar, to be sure that you have completely removed the bitter taste. For this operation, it is necessary to cut the eggplants into cubes, or even better into 1 cm thick slices.

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). This method works for eggplant slices, cubes, or planks.

How do you make eggplant taste better? ›

What do eggplants go with? Flavourings: garlic, chilli, onion, basil, mint, cumin, parsley, coriander, oregano. Ingredients: haloumi, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses, anchovies, olives, tomatoes, eggs, beef, lamb, tahini, yoghurt, lemon juice, olives and olive oil.

Eggplants are almost all water, so flipping them throughout the roasting process is imperative to keep them from steaming, according to Stilo. Another key to avoid steaming is to not overcrowd the pan.

If you're baking or roasting eggplants, give them some wiggle room so they cook evenly. You don't want to crowd the baking sheet or pan. "When you lay them on the tray to roast, make sure they're in a single layer and give them enough room to roast properly.

Place the eggplant slices in the boiling water and blanch them for 4 minutes. Blanching destroys enzymes in the eggplant that cause the vegetable to break down over time. If you do not blanch the eggplant, it will begin losing nutritional value, color, and flavor within a month, even if you freeze it.

Place the eggplant slices evenly spaced out on dehydrator trays and set them back into the dehydrator. Set the dehydrator to 140-145°F and let the eggplant bacon dehydrate for 4-6 hours (depending on the thickness or until they get crispy).

Blanched vegetables should be drained and placed on dryer trays. The heat from blanching will give them a head start in the drying process. Onions, garlic, peppers, and herbs do not need blanching.

Blanch most vegetables before drying. Drying your own food means avoiding additives often found in commercially dried products. Although pretreatment of your food isn't necessary, many vegetables benefit from blanching (briefly boiling or steaming).