longueur? et degorger?

So I was making gratin egg plant the other day. I was home by myself and I was trying to have supper started for Laurent when he arrived home. The recipe was in French and told me to cut the egg plant in longueur. I proceeded to decide what this could mean. Length or in circles? I know it sounds more like length but I have never actually seen anyone cut egg plant lengthwise so I thought 'that can't be'. I then proceeded to cut them in rounds.

Then it says to degorger the egg plant in sugar. I also don't know what this means. I know Laurent and I had discussed putting them in water, so I put some sugar in water and place my egg plant in the water. It tells me to degorger them for 1 or 2 hours, which I do.

You can imagine my disappointment when Laurent arrived and tells me that degorger means to 'take the water out of' not 'to soak in water'. By this time it was already 8pm and I had to degorger my egg plant for another 1 or 2 because I was gorgering them not degorgering for the last hour. Needless to say I was disappointed and frustrated. Then I felt pretty silly when I realized I could have just looked the words up in my dictionary. Why didn't I think of that in the first place!?!

By the way I don't think I even like gratin egg plant.