By adding salt, or salting cut pieces of eggplant and letting it sit for a certain amount of time, the eggplant will start to ‘sweat’, excess water and moisture will be drawn out. You should sweat your eggplant before cooking. Sweating the eggplant by salting it tenderizes the texture of the eggplant flesh and reduces the bitter taste often found in eggplant. Also, with the moisture being drawn out, the eggplant will absorb less oil used in cooking. Cut eggplant into desired sized slices and place in a colander. Sprinkle liberally with kosher salt making sure that all slices of the eggplant are salted on both sides. Let sit for 30 minutes. You will start to see the eggplant “sweat” with beads of water coming out and being drained. Rinse well with water. Pat eggplant slices dry. They are now ready to use in your favorite eggplant recipe!
Aggressive Method - peckthebeak.com
A more aggressive approach to really draining the eggplant clean is to place the slices of eggplant into a colander, which is over a large bowl in order to collect all the run-off juices. Salt the eggplant slices generously and then place a paper towel over them. The paper towel will collect some of the sweating that occurs on the eggplant’s tops. Then place a heavy skillet pan over the eggplant slices in the colander and weigh it down. This extra weight really helps drain and squeeze out all that extra moisture and bitterness.
Rather than sweating/draining the eggplants for one to two hours, do it for six hours. Every 30 minutes, flip the eggplant slices and then place the weighted pan back on top. You will be amazed at all the juices that run out of the eggplant. The texture and color of the eggplant will transfigure into softer, browner slices.
