Two Methods to Keep Eggplant from Turning Brown

Eggplant is one of the most popular vegetables of all cuisines, but cooked eggplant would turn brown. Though the taste of cooked eggplant won’t be affected, the brown eggplant doesn’t look nice in terms of presentation. I am showing two methods, poaching and sweating with salt, to retain its purple colour after cooking.

Ingredients –
Eggplant, 2. Which methods you use, try to use those with darker shade of purple;
Water;
Salt.

Method 1 – poaching

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil;

2. Eggplant cut to big chunks;

3. When the water is boiling, keep high heat, put in eggplant and try to press the peel side down in the boiling water. Poach for 3 to 5 minutes, then drain;

4. Let’s have a look – those fully boiled in water can retain a lighter shade of purple, whereas those not fully cooked in water would turn brown;

5. I would like to make Chilled Sour and Spicy Eggplant Salad using poaching eggplant.

Method 2 – sweating with salt
1. Eggplant cut to big chunks, in a big bowl, mixed with 2tbsp of salt, let it sit for 20 minutes;

2. Roughly wash off the salt in runny water, then squeeze the liquid out of the eggplants;

3. I make Mapo Eggplant with these eggplants, and the colour is even deeper. I would suggest quick-fry and braise for these sweated eggplants can be cooked thoroughly quickly and absorb less oil.

To conclude, poached eggplant retains a litter shade of purple but it needs a suitable size tool to press all eggplant down in the water otherwise some of them would still turn brown; sweated eggplant keeps a deeper shade of purple and doesn’t require difficult cooing skill to handle with. Anyhow, eggplants taste and look good in both ways.