Japanese Eggplant

My community is fortunate to have a very good weekly farmers’ market over the summer months. I am trying to take advantage of these last few weeks of Sunday morning, local produce shopping. Last Sunday, I spotted eggplant on a table. I was very excited about this! I also spotted on the table the skinnier cousin, Japanese eggplant. Produce in that section of the tent was $1 each or 5 for $6. Yea! I took two eggplant, two zucchini, and two of the Japanese eggplant. I had never prepared Japanese eggplant, but I had seen recipes for it at random times in the past. I figured that for under $2, it was worth seeing what I could do with it!

I did some reading to learn more about Japanese eggplant. If interested, here is one of the articles I read.

I also learned that there are several varieties of eggplant which were new to me. I had no idea!

After some searching for recipes, I went back to my standby–keeping it simple and basic. I found this recipe for roasted Japanese eggplant which I (mostly) followed. This fit my criteria–easy and delicious!

Please refer to the link for the full recipe, but the photos and comments will tell most of the story.

Here are the long Japanese eggplant which I found at my local farmers' market. — Here are the long Japanese eggplant which I found at my local farmers’ market.

Japanese eggplant trimmed, sliced, and scored.

You can see the beads of moisture. This was approximately 30 minutes after salt was sprinkled on the eggplant and (obviously) before wiping the drops away.

Interested in understanding more about why the salt is used? I was, and this is what I found. The truth is that I am unlikely to remember any of those details, so I will likely just continue following instructions in recipes.