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| Eggplant |
Eggplant (Solanum melongena) is a species of nightshade commonly known in British English as aubergine and also known as brinjal, brinjal eggplant, melongene, garden egg, or guinea squash. It bears a fruit of the same name (commonly either "eggplant" in American English or "aubergine" in British English) that is widely used in cooking, most notably as an important ingredient in dishes such as moussaka and ratatouille. As a member of the genus Solanum, it is related to both the tomato and the potato. It was originally domesticated in India from the wild nightshade, the thorn or bitter apple, S. incanum.
The S. melongena, or commonly known as the Eggplant is a delicate, tropical perennial often cultivated as a tender or half-hardy annual in temperate climates. It grows 40 to 150 cm (16 to 57 in) tall, with large, coarsely lobed leaves that are 10 to 20 cm (4–8 in) long and 5 to 10 cm (2–4 in) broad. Semiwild types can grow much larger, to 225 cm (7 ft) with large leaves over 30 cm (12 in) long and 15 cm (6 in) broad. The stem is often spiny. The flower is white to purple, with a five-lobed corolla and yellow stamens. The egg-shaped glossy black fruit has white flesh with a meaty texture. The cut surface of the flesh rapidly turns brown when the fruit is cut open. On wild plants, the fruit is less than 3 cm (1.2 in) in diameter, but very much larger in cultivated forms, reaching 30 cm (12 in) or more in length.
The fruit is botanically classified as a berry and contains numerous small, soft seeds which are edible, but have a bitter taste because they contain nicotinoid alkaloids (it is a close relative of tobacco).
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| Three varieties of eggplant. |
Different varieties of the plant produce fruit of different size, shape, and color, though typically purple. The most widely cultivated varieties (cultivars) in Europe and North America today are elongated ovoid, 12–25 cm long (4½ to 9 in) and 6–9 cm broad (2 to 4 in) in a dark purple skin.
A much wider range of shapes, sizes and colors is grown in India and elsewhere in Asia. Larger varieties weighing up to a kilogram (2.2 pounds) grow in the region between the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, while smaller varieties are found elsewhere. Colors vary from white to yellow or green, as well as reddish-purple and dark purple. Some cultivars have a color gradient, from white at the stem to bright pink to deep purple or even black. Green or purple cultivars in white striping also exist. Chinese varieties are commonly shaped like a narrower, slightly pendulous cucumber, and are sometimes called Japanese eggplants in North America.
Oval or elongated oval-shaped and black-skinned cultivars include 'Harris Special Hibush', 'Burpee Hybrid', 'Black Magic', 'Classic', 'Dusky', and 'Black Beauty'. Slim cultivars in purple-black skin include 'Little Fingers', 'Ichiban', 'Pingtung Long', and 'Tycoon'; in green skin, 'Louisiana Long Green' and 'Thai (Long) Green'; in white skin, 'Dourga'. Traditional, white-skinned, egg-shaped cultivars include 'Casper' and 'Easter Egg'. Bicolored cultivars with color gradient include 'Rosa Bianca', 'Violetta di Firenze', 'Bianca Smufata di Rosa' (heirloom), and 'Prosperosa' (heirloom). Bicolored cultivars with striping include 'Listada de Gandia' and 'Udumalapet'. In some parts of India, miniature varieties (most commonly called vengan) are popular. A particular variety of green brinjal known as Matti gulla is grown in Matti, a village of the Udupi district in Karnataka state.
The raw fruit can have a somewhat bitter taste, but becomes tender when cooked and develops a rich, complex flavor. Many recipes advise salting, rinsing and draining of the sliced fruit (known as "degorging"), to soften it and to reduce the amount of fat absorbed during cooking, but mainly to remove the bitterness of the earlier cultivars. Some modern varieties - including large, purple varieties commonly imported into western Europe - do not need this treatment. The fruit is capable of absorbing large amounts of cooking fats and sauces, making for very rich dishes, but salting reduces the amount of oil absorbed. Eggplant, due to its texture and bulk, can be used as a meat substitute in vegan and vegetarian cuisine.
The fruit flesh is smooth; as in the related tomato, the numerous seeds are soft and edible along with the rest of the fruit. The thin skin is also edible.
Eggplant is used in the cuisine of many countries. It is often stewed, as in the French ratatouille, or deep fried as in the Italian parmigiana di melanzane, the Turkish karnıyarık or Turkish and Greek musakka/moussaka, and Middle-Eastern and South Asian dishes. Eggplants can also be battered before deep-frying and served with a sauce made of tahini and tamarind. In Iranian cuisine, it is blended with whey as kashk e-bademjan, tomatoes as mirza ghasemi or made into stew as khoresh-e-bademjan. It can be sliced and deep-fried, then served with plain yogurt, (optionally) topped with a tomato and garlic sauce, such as in the Turkish dish patlıcan kızartması (meaning: fried aubergines) or without yogurt as in patlıcan şakşuka. Perhaps the best-known Turkish eggplant dishes are İmam bayıldı (vegetarian) and Karnıyarık (with minced meat).
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| Melanzane alla Parmigiana, or Eggplant Parmesan. |
It may also be roasted in its skin until charred, so the pulp can be removed and blended with other ingredients, such as lemon, tahini, and garlic, as in the Arab baba ghanoush and the similar Greek melitzanosalata. Grilled, mashed and mixed with onions, tomatoes and spices make the Indian and Pakistani dish baingan ka Bhartha or gojju, similar to salată de vinete in Romania, while a mix of roasted eggplant, roasted red peppers, chopped onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, celery and spices is called zacuscă in Romania or ajvar in Croatia and the Balkans. A simpler version of the dish, baigan-pora (eggplant-charred or burnt), is very popular in the east Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal, and Bangladesh where the pulp of vegetable is mixed with raw chopped onions, green chillies, salt and mustard oil. Sometimes fried whole tomatoes and burnt potatoes are also added which is called baigan bharta. A Spanish dish called escalivada calls for strips of roasted aubergine, sweet pepper, onion and tomato. In the La Mancha region of central Spain a small eggplant is pickled in vinegar, paprika, olive oil and red peppers the result is berenjena de Almagro, Ciudad Real. A Levantine specialty is Makdous, another pickling of eggplants, stuffed with red peppers and walnuts in olive oil.
Eggplant can be hollowed out and stuffed with meat, rice, or other fillings, and then baked. In the Caucasus, for example, it is fried and stuffed with walnut paste to make nigvziani badrijani. It can also be found in Chinese cuisine, braised, stewed, steamed, or stuffed.
Eggplant is widely used in Indian cuisine, for example in sambhar, dalma (a dal preparation with vegetables, native to Odisha), chutney, curry, and achaar. Owing to its versatile nature and wide use in both everyday and festive Indian food, it is often described (under the name brinjal) as the "king of vegetables". In a dish called Bharli Vangi, brinjal is stuffed with ground coconut, peanuts, and masala, and then cooked in oil.
Nutritionally, eggplant is low in fat, protein, and carbohydrates. It also contains relatively low amounts of most important vitamins and minerals. A 1998 study at the Institute of Biology of São Paulo State University, Brazil, found eggplant juice to significantly reduce weight, plasma cholesterol levels, and aortic cholesterol content in hypercholesterolemic rabbits.
The results of a 2000 study on humans suggested S. melongena infusion had a modest and transitory effect, no different from diet and exercise.
A 2004 study at the Heart Institute of the University of São Paulo found that "eggplant extract with orange juice is not to be considered an alternative to statins in reducing serum levels of cholesterol."
The nicotine content of aubergines, a concentration of 0.01 mg per 100g, is low in absolute terms, but is higher than any other edible plant. The amount of nicotine consumed by eating eggplant may be comparable to being in the presence of a smoker, depending on the cooking method.On average, 9 kg (20 lbs) of eggplant contains about the same amount of nicotine as a cigarette.
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