Defrost (Or) Not ?

My sister harvested her eggplants and we made 5 big trays of eggplant parm 3 weeks ago. Now we had one tray for dinner and the other 4 we froze in the freezer. I want to have one for Sunday dinner do I defrost it before cooking or do I leave it frozen and place in the oven... We never did this before so I don't know which way would be right.. Thanks

I have done it before and did not defrost before cooking. I'm afraid it may get too watery if you do.

Great question! You can do it either way. I like to defrost first (usually in the microwave) and then cook in the oven. This makes a shorter cook time. If frozen it just takes longer to cook and you have to be sure the center is 'done' (I use a meat thermometer to be sure). It could be cooked completely in the microwave, but then you don't get that nice 'crusty' top.

You're right Ana... The water content from the ice would make it watery..
Sorta I can't put it in the Microwave as we prepared them in metal throw away pans.

I agree with Ana. It would be best to cook frozen. If you think about it you can buy eggplant in the freezer section of grocery store and they always tell you to cook it frozen. Good luck!

I must be thick but I don't even know what eggplant means/is/does:-) An American thing?

It's a quite large deep purple vegetable. It is popular in Italy, Asia, Turkey and of course, the US. Good stuff!

Eggplant

We call them aubergines in the UK. Good stuff indeed Draclvr!

Ah, we know it as aubergine. Don't think I've ever had it though.

I don't think the casserole would have collected that much extra ice after only 3 weeks, but I'm assuming you covered it when you put it in the freezer. Where would the ice come from? Usually ice is drawn out of the food itself during successive freeze/thaw cycles of a freezer. If you've ever had a bag of vegetables in the freezer for a year or more, you may notice the vegetables themselves look a bit dried out while there is a lot of ice in the bag. Of course if you have the type of freezer with no automatic defrosting, there wouldn't be freeze/thaw cycles.

You can defrost or not ahead of cooking. Cooking would probably be more even if you defrost a little bit ahead of time, but it doesn't have to be 100% thawed -- leave it on the counter for an hour or two before putting it in the oven.

It's delicious if prepared well! I prefer mine sliced and dipped in egg wash and coated with Parmesan and then fried in coconut oil. Delish!

One year we planted a garden with all sorts of great veggies. The ONLY thing that survived was eggplant. We had eggplant for years! It kept regrowing whether we watered it or not. Fried eggplant, baked eggplant (with butter and brown sugar) or with butter and parmesan cheese, eggplant in soups, battered and fried eggplant in spaghetti sauce (awesome), chopped eggplant in scrambled eggs. We came up with tons of ways to eat it. I'll bet after 20 years it's still growing in that little rental house's back yard. I like to say we moved just to get away from it.

Ana that sounds yummy! I love eggplant!

Gerry, I avoid gluten and this comes out healthier and tastier than any breading! You can also add some ground almonds to the Parmesan.

Ana my daughter has to avoid gluten completely. Your recipe sounded so good i forwarded it to her. i will tell her about using the ground almonds too. Thanks!

I cook everything gluten free, there are so many options available to substitute and we find they actually taste better!

It's also good that products gluten free can be found in stores now.

I agree!

Ok...
I put it in the oven frozen on 350 degrees let it slow bake... It came out great !

Excellent!

I'm glad you came back and let us know!

Thanks for letting us know Dar! Glad it work out!