Eggplant Salad with Egg and Pickled Onion

Cooking method

1. Step 1:

   

   Gather the ingredients for the salad. The heart of the dish is eggplant, eggs, and onion. Prep these ahead and the salad comes together quickly and easily.

2. Step 2:

   

   Wash the eggs, put them in a pot, cover with cold water, and set over the heat. Add a pinch of salt to the water so the shells don't crack while cooking. Boil the eggs for about 10 minutes from the time the water boils — any longer and the yolks take on an unappealing greenish tint.

3. Step 3:

   

   Drain the hot water off the cooked eggs, cover them with cold water, and let them sit for 20 minutes. Then peel the eggs and cut them into large cubes with a knife.

4. Step 4:

   

   Peel the onion and finely chop it with a knife. Any onion you like works here — don't worry if it's a sharp one. Once it's marinated in the vinegar mixture, any harshness will mellow away.

5. Step 5:

   

   Pour the water and table vinegar into a bowl, add half a tablespoon of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, and a pinch of citric acid, and stir until the crystals fully dissolve. Add the onion to the marinade, scrunch it well with your hands, and let it sit for 15 minutes while you prepare the eggplant.

6. Step 6:

   

   These days you can find all kinds of eggplant, including varieties with no bitterness and few seeds — those make things easy, since you can skip the de-bittering step and go straight to cooking. But if your eggplant is the ordinary, slightly bitter kind, that's no problem. Wash the eggplant, peel it, and cut the flesh into small cubes.

7. Step 7:

   

   Put the eggplant in a bowl, salt it, and rub it with your hands so it absorbs the salt well, then leave it for 15 minutes. By then it will have released its juices — squeeze them out. Pour vegetable oil into a skillet and heat it up.

8. Step 8:

   

   Fry the eggplant over medium heat, stirring with a spatula, for about 10 minutes, until lightly golden.

9. Step 9:

   

   Let the eggplant cool, then add it to the bowl with the other ingredients.

10. Step 10:

    

    Dress the salad with mayonnaise — but use just a little, since the eggplant has already soaked up plenty of frying oil, and too much fat can throw off the salad. Add salt and ground black pepper to taste.

11. Step 11:

    

    Toss to combine. Serve the salad warm or cold — it's delicious either way. Enjoy!