Overseas caviar, eggplant is a favorite vegetable snack of Russians, consisting, in addition to eggplant, of carrots, bell peppers, white or red onions and tomatoes. In addition, the correct selection of sunflower oil is very important. The dish is perfect if you bake eggplants in the oven or on the grill.
Cooking rules
Eggplant caviar was and remains a favorite preparation for the winter for many housewives, and for sure, each of them has its own recipe and its own nuances of cooking this caviar. But, despite this, in order to get tasty and "correct" caviar, you need to follow several general rules for its preparation.
Firstly, when cooking, you need to remember about vegetables, which must be present in eggplant caviar: onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and eggplants, of course. At the same time, in order to preserve the nutritional properties of these vegetables - antioxidants, vitamins, etc., try to expose them to heat treatment as little as possible. You can add other vegetables as desired. At the same time, to make the caviar sweeter, it is better to use red onions.
The second important rule when preparing caviar is quality oil. It is best to use olive oil. Eggplant caviar generally "loves" a fairly large amount of it, but do not forget that no matter how high-quality oil is, it is a high-calorie product. To cook low-calorie caviar, a drop of oil is enough for frying the onions, while the vegetables should be stewed not in oil, but in tomato juice.
Standard method for preparing eggplant caviar
Ingredients:
- 3 kg of eggplant;
- 300 g of onions;
- 300 g of bell pepper;
- 300 g of tomatoes;
- 100 ml of vegetable oil;
- 100 g of tomato juice;
- 14 cloves of garlic;
- basil, parsley, cilantro - to taste;
- sugar - to taste;
- pepper - to taste;
- salt to taste.
Put longitudinally sliced eggplants on a baking sheet greased with oil; bake them in an oven preheated to 250 ° C for 25 minutes. After the eggplants have cooled, peel them off and finely chop the flesh. Also finely chop the onion and pepper, chop the peeled tomatoes in a blender.
Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan, heat well and put onion, fry it for two minutes, then add pepper and simmer for another six minutes. Pour in tomato juice and simmer for five minutes, add eggplant and simmer for another seven minutes. Remember to stir. At the same time, add chopped garlic and herbs, sugar, salt, pepper to the vegetables and simmer for another five minutes. Place ready hot caviar in sterile seaming jars.
