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[Sappho]

Hm... I salted and wicked off the moisture with lots of paper towels, but I didn't actually rinse. I'll try that next time...

[Sheb]

I always though the salt/rinse stuff was to get rid of the slightly bitter flavor, not for anything oil-related. You could always cook them separately, but that's one extra pan.

[Sappho]

Salting is to get rid of the bitter stuff inside. I have a tiny kitchen and only one of each type of pan (one shallow pan, one small pot, one large pot, and one wok) and two burners, so an extra pan isn't really feasible. I suppose I could put them in last, but they take more time to cook than some vegetables... Hm......

[Sheb]

Or just add more oil? I'm a firm believer in the "Fat Is Good" school of cooking.

[Sappho]

That's what I did this time. The result was soggy, oil-soaked eggplant and undercooked everything else. : /

[Knit tie]

Eggplants are absolutely horrible to cook, trust a guy who has them as a diet staple. Frying them works only if you do it separately, as the purple bastards take longer to fry than almost any other vegetable in existence. If you have to cook them together with other stuff, I recommend either baking or boiling. Salting is always a good move, but you might also want to carve a net of gashes into them, that cuts off almost 5 mins of cooking time.

[Sappho]

I think I've come to some conclusions. I was making pasta with veggies and I didn't have any tomatoes for sauce, so I just stir-fried the veggies and dumped the pasta in. But I ran into trouble with the eggplant. So either I need to add the eggplant at the last minute (and let the other veggies get a little overcooked), or I need to only use eggplant for things like this if I'm using tomato to make a sauce. That way I can boil the eggplant in the sauce rather than having to sautee it and letting it soak up all the oil.

[Helgoland]

Eggplants are great for grilling. Grill for a bit, turn, put butter on the upper side, grill for a bit, turn, apply butter again, grill for a bit, turn, grill for a bit. Omnomnom.

[Knit tie]

Never ever put eggplants in a sauce without tomatoes. Otherwise they will just soak all the moisture and oil up.

[Sappho]

Never ever put eggplants in a sauce without tomatoes. Otherwise they will just soak all the moisture and oil up.

Yup. : ) Lesson learned!

[Avis-Mergulus]

So I made caramel with honey and cream.

It's like this: you take a pot, put some sugar and honey in (I usually take a tablespoon of honey for every four or five tablespoons of sugar), then pour some 10% cream on it. The point is to make the sugar wet, not dissolve it. After you're done with the cream, you can add some more sugar to soak up excess moisture. You should end up with an unappetizing sugary mess with a glob of honey sitting in the middle of it. I used last year's honey, so it's not liquid. Point is, if there's still liquid in the pot, UR DOIN IT WRONG.

Then you turn the stove on to the lowest setting (without stirring), and wait for the mess to start bubbling at the edges and for the honey to start melting. Then you stir it and basically bugger off for twenty minutes or so while you wait for it to turn a reddish-brown color. Be careful, it bubbles a lot, so it may climb out of the pot if you took too much sugar. It's a bitch to wash off the stove afterwards. You can stir the mixture periodically, but it's not really necessary.

After it's turned the proper color, you pour a little more cream in carefully. This step is really important, because without it the end result won't be properly chewy, just crunchy and hard to eat. Be careful, though - it sizzles. Then you wait for it to sink in and evaporate, stir the mix, and pour it out onto parchment (or just paper, if you have none. Point is, you don't want to wash this stuff off plates). Then you wait for it to cool - should take about fifteen minutes - and start rolling it into balls. You can pull strands out of it while it's hot with a fork, just to pass the time. Well, start rolling, anyway. It should still be hot and stretchy, just not too hot. If you let it cool too much, the sweets will be inconsistent in texture. If you did everything right, they should be hard but chewable, and have this rich honey-ish taste, and kill diabetics with a single helping, as well as ruin dentures and make you uber fat. You can probably substitute milk for cream, and add vanilla sugar instead of regular sugar. But heck.

[Sappho]

Any idea if this would work with soy milk or any other non-dairy equivalent, for us lactose intolerants?

[Arx]

It should.

The recipe for fudge is very similar to that of caramel, as well. Can't be bothered to dig out and scan the family one right now, but I might later.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Any idea if this would work with soy milk or any other non-dairy equivalent, for us lactose intolerants?

I have no idea about soy milk - never tried it in my life. Trust Arx. It will work with water, though, but the taste isn't as good.

[Knit tie]

Any idea if this would work with soy milk or any other non-dairy equivalent, for us lactose intolerants?

I have no idea about soy milk - never tried it in my life. Trust Arx. It will work with water, though, but the taste isn't as good.

Soy milk works, but makes the resultant caramel taste very bland and unappetizing. You are better off using water.