Friday, November 2, 2012

Eggplants! Ack, eggplants.


This year I planted four eggplants. Miraculously all four produced fruit. A ton of it.

This left us with an unusual situation. What to do with the leftover fruit once we were eggplanted out.

After baba ghanoush, eggplant Parmesan and Thai curry with eggplant in quick succession we were ready to take a break.

Unfortunately that was when all four plants were in full production mode. I immediately consulted my pickling books, but no recipes jumped out at me. Then it occurred to me, could we freeze it?

It turns out you can, and the process is fairly quick and easy.

Slice the eggplant to the desired thickness.


Blanch it by placing it in boiling water. The goal is to get it slightly translucent, but not too cooked or mushy. I think mine were in the water about 30 seconds.

Take them out of the boiling water and submerge them in ice water. I put them on a rack to let them dry for about a half hour and then bagged them in one meal portions.

Some for Thai curry and the rest for eggplant Parmesan.