Pickled Eggplant - A Seasonless Dish
The ivory-white eggplant pieces are salty and bitter, but once cooked, they are crispy. Eating rice in the summer with a plate of boiled water spinach with tamarind vinegar (or star fruit) will melt into your stomach before it even touches your lips. In Hanoi , just go to the traditional markets, stop by the pickled eggplant stalls and you will see the pressed eggplants lying modestly in a corner somewhere in a glass jar. Although not many people buy them and they are not as easy to eat as the quick-pickled eggplants, the pressed salted eggplants have persisted through the years, preserving the rustic flavor in the middle of this bustling city.
Many people do not notice that Thang Long has Khuong Ha village that has been making salted eggplants for hundreds of years. In the past, this was an area that grew delicious eggplants, and many families used to make salted eggplants to sell in and out of the city. Urbanization makes land valuable, and the rustic, simple salted eggplants cannot keep the land that is increasingly valuable.
The village land used to grow eggplants is now replaced by towering buildings, the eggplant salting profession has also faded away and only a few families still remain in the profession. Another part is that although traditional dishes are delicious to some people, they are also quite picky because you have to eat little by little to feel the deliciousness of those salty eggplants. Nowadays, people are used to meat and fast food.
Eggplants are usually harvested in early spring, around February and March of the lunar calendar. At that time, the eggplants will be as big as a fist, round, flat, white with green stripes. Some people like to pickle them right away, others like to soak them in fish sauce, but surely there will be people who want to press a jar of eggplants to eat gradually. Because it is pressed pickled eggplant, the main ingredient is salt, a lot of salt, so the eggplants will last a long time without fermenting. This dish is therefore used all year round and there is no specific season to call it by.
How to eat pickled eggplant deliciously
It takes a whole month to press a batch of delicious eggplants until they are ready to eat, unlike eggplants that can be eaten in a few days. For pressing salted eggplants, you usually have to choose the right green ones, meaning when the eggplants have turned opaque white, they still have green stripes on the skin, thick flesh, and few seeds.
People do not pickle freshly picked eggplants but rather dry them for a few days to wilt and reduce the sap, so that when pickled, the eggplants will be crispy longer. The eggplant stems must be broken by hand, not cut with a knife, as this can easily ruin the whole jar of eggplants. After drying, wash the eggplants, let them dry completely, and then place them in the jar one by one.
You have to be skillful and delicate, little by little, place the eggplant belly down, with the stem side facing up so that when “salted” it will cover the stem completely and not get soggy. One layer of eggplant, one layer of salt until the jar is full. There is a very important note that the old people in the past were always careful about, that is, the sea salt grains are quite large, so they must be crushed beforehand so that the sharp edges of the salt grains do not cut deep into the eggplant skin, leading to soggy skin. If you cannot crush it, then when sprinkling salt, you must be gentle, do not stir it so that the eggplant skin does not get scratched.
After “salting” for about 8-10 hours, pour water to cover the top layer of eggplants. Next, place a woven bamboo tray on top of the eggplants and press it with a large pebble or heavy object. To be more careful, after 1 week of pressing the eggplants, pour out the old brine, add salt and water a second time. This step is to remove the bitterness and also to avoid scum, helping the eggplants to be used all year round.
After 1 month, the eggplants are ripe and can be eaten. The qualified eggplants are white, slightly yellowish, and flat like rice balls. In the past, many families did not use knives to slice the eggplants but instead tore them by hand into small pieces lengthwise. The eggplants were salty, so a bowl of white porridge or hot rice was enough for a meal.
But to make it more delicious, people also have many improvisations to make… interesting dishes. After slicing the eggplant thinly, if you want to keep the original salty taste, just put it in the palm of your hand and squeeze out the salt water, otherwise, wash it a few times to make it less salty. Add sugar, garlic, thinly sliced lemon leaves, crushed chili, mix well and squeeze lemon juice, it will be wonderful. Especially with a plate of boiled water spinach, sweet potato leaves, fried tofu, boiled meat, scoop out a bowl of salted eggplant water to dip, all the delicious dishes will be around the dinner table.
All those spices mixed with the eggplant pieces make its color more "buzzing", the taste more familiar and appealing to the mouth of the person enjoying it. Not only mixed like that, the eggplant with salt can also be fried with garlic and stir-fried with pork fat, adding some thinly sliced lemon leaves, so that the meal does not need to be invited, the diners will pick it up right away. Eggplant is thought to be salty, but when braised with fish or meat, it also creates a very... delicious dish.
Nowadays, fast food lovers pickle the eggplants for a few hours to eat with a spicy, astringent, pungent taste, the eggplants are soft and spongy. Aesthetically, it seems attractive, but it cannot compare to the memorable salty taste of pressed salt. The salty taste of the effort and sophistication, eating a piece reminds you of the love of your grandmother with her hands marked by time to have familiar, family meals.
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