Ways to store eggplant at home in winter

Selection and preparation of fruits for storage

Before starting harvesting eggplant for the winter, it is first of all important to determine the quality of vegetables that will be subject to long-term storage. They must be fresh. There are certain rules, thanks to which you can select suitable fruits that will not deteriorate for the first months of their wintering.

So, it is important to remember the following:

1. It is necessary to choose varieties suitable for maturation: "Robin Hood", "Balagur", "Vakula". These are large-fruited eggplants, with a fairly thick rind. Also, for storage for the winter, you can use such varieties as "Sperm whale", "Torpedo", "F1 Bard", "F1 Goliath". They can confidently lie from 3 to 5 months, throughout the winter, but only if all the necessary conditions are exactly met.
2. You should decide on the time of collection. This must be done before the first autumn cold snap comes. Otherwise, the crop may be spoiled by rot. Accordingly, such fruits are clearly not suitable for maturation.
3. The crop should be harvested exclusively in dry weather. This will not only save your energy, but also protect the crop from fungal infections. After harvesting, the fruits will need to be dried, preferably not in the sun, since under the influence of ultraviolet rays, solanine is produced, which is harmful to human health. If you have harvested vegetables in high humidity levels, then they should not be immediately stacked over the winter, they will start to rot. Therefore, consider a number of additional measures for drying vegetables.
4. Selected fruits for maturation must be ripe. At the same time, overripe fruits are completely unsuitable for long-term storage. You can find out about the ripeness of a vegetable by lightly poking it with your fingernail. If the peel is difficult to damage, then it can be taken for storage.
5. On the peel of a ripe vegetable, there should be no significant defects that can destroy not only this eggplant, but also the rest of the specimens located in the storage.
6. When picking vegetables from the garden, the fruit should have a leg 2 to 3 cm long. This will not allow the fruit to dry out quickly, and the infection will not be able to harm it during the winter. In addition, you can find out about the condition of the fetus by the leg.
7. Never wash vegetables that you are setting aside for storage! To clean and remove the soil from them, you just need to shake off the vegetable and wipe it with a cloth.
8. It should be remembered that the optimal storage temperature is + 3-5 ° C, maximum + 10 ° C. The air humidity level should not exceed 75-85%. Try to create the conditions in your store so that your eggplants overwinter for a long time. It is noteworthy that these recommendations are important to consider only when storing eggplants in a cellar or in a dark, cool place. For other storage methods, these conditions are not at all necessary, since the eggplants will be subject to further processing.

Storage methods

After the vegetables are properly prepared for the storage process, it is important to decide in which way they will be stored throughout the winter. There are several of the most common ways to preserve eggplant during the winter at home.

In a cellar / dark place

In order to save the harvest for a long time in the cellar, basement or storerooms, eggplants should be placed in a cardboard box, while they should not be folded in bulk, but carefully packed individually and separated from each other with a dense paper partition. There should be from one to two or three layers in such a box. You should not put a lot on top of each other, because the lack of air circulation will lead to spoilage or delight of vegetables. Instead of paper, you can use straw or hay, but in this case, the eggplants are laid out in one layer on a straw bedding and covered with burlap for about two weeks to isolate the vegetables from excessive weather and exposure to humid air.

After a two-week period, the eggplants are sorted. For further storage, only whole and intact vegetables are left. After sorting, the eggplants are put back on a dry straw mat and remain in storage throughout the winter. Also, another well-known method for storing eggplants in the basement is to fill them with wood ash in deep wooden boxes, followed by keeping them at a temperature of +7 ° C. Hanging is an original way to store eggplant in basements or dark places. To do this, use a regular mesh at home. It is pulled at some distance from the floor, and then the eggplants are laid out in one layer. To avoid souring and rotting vegetables, the room should be ventilated with a mandatory temperature of +3 ° C.

Dried

In addition to keeping eggplant fresh for the winter, drying is also practiced. As a rule, vegetables are dried in two ways: naturally or artificially. If you dry eggplants in the open air, then it must be borne in mind that this process can last for several days. To dry the fruits naturally, you need to prepare them in advance - wash them from dirt and dust. Eggplants can be dried whole or cut into several pieces. Having decided on the type of drying, you need to spread the prepared material on a baking sheet or oilcloth with a small distance from each other and place the eggplants in the open air, the main thing is not to get direct sunlight. In addition, you can cut the eggplant into rings and, string them on a string or fishing line, hang them in a well-ventilated room, or outside.

The artificial method involves drying vegetables in the oven. Its advantages are that it is faster and more practical. And also less dangerous to human health, since it not only guarantees the absence of the production of solanine in the fruits, but also excludes the infection of the drying by the larvae of various insects, including flies that land on eggplants dried outside. Drying eggplants in the oven is quite simple. They should be pre-prepared and cut into medium-sized pieces. They must be laid out on a baking sheet and placed in the oven for about 6 hours, keeping at a temperature not exceeding 50 ° C. After the specified time, the drying must be removed from the oven and allowed to cool for 1 hour. If moisture remains in the vegetables, and the pieces are not dried, but dried, then the process should be repeated, reducing the stay of the eggplant in the oven to 1.5-2 hours.

Video "Drying eggplant"

This video shows how to dry eggplant for the winter.

Freezing

This is the easiest way to store eggplant. It requires a minimum of effort and expense. In addition, frozen vegetables do not lose their beneficial properties than when they are dried. The process of preparing eggplant for freezing is no different from preparing for drying.The only difference is the size of the slices into which you can cut the eggplant. Since the vegetable does not dry out when frozen, you can cut the eggplant into small cubes, strips, rings, etc.

To get rid of the bitterness of raw eggplant, sprinkle it with salt before freezing, wait about 20 minutes and rinse with water. Putting unsalted eggplants in the freezer, later, they will taste unpleasant.

Also, to preserve the taste of frozen eggplant, after salting, you need to blanch the chopped pieces in boiling water and immediately immerse them in cold water. After a series of procedures, all this is laid out on a plate or tray, covered with polyethylene and placed in the freezer for 3-4 hours. Further, frozen eggplants are taken out of the freezer for packing in bags, packed and put back for storage for a long time.

Video "Eggplant for the winter - freezing eggplant"

The correctness of freezing eggplant for the winter is described in detail in this video.