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Stuffed Egg Plant
Parboil 1 egg plant and cut in halves Scrape out some of the inside and chop some cold cooked meat with 2 tomatoes, 1 onion, and 2 green peppers. Then mix with 1 beaten egg, 1 tablespoon Crisco, and salt and pepper to taste. Fill halves with this mixture; sprinkle with breadcrumbs and tiny bits of Crisco, put in baking dish with little stock or water, and bake.
A thrifty use for leftover roast, from a cookbook written to sell shortening. The original gives no oven temperature and no time, so those are the first gaps to fill.
- Oven and timeThe original gives neither. A moderate oven, about 350-375F, for 30 to 40 minutes, until the tops are browned and a knife slides easily through the shell, is a reasonable modern reading; the recipe itself specifies nothing. The stock in the dish keeps the skins from scorching; add more if it cooks dry.
- ParboilingFive to eight minutes in salted water is enough for a medium eggplant. It should yield to a fork but still hold its shape, since the halves have to stand up as containers. Drain them cut side down before filling.
- CriscoIntroduced in 1911 and heavily promoted in books like this one, it was a hydrogenated vegetable shortening. Butter or olive oil does the same work here and tastes better; use about a tablespoon in the filling and dot the crumbs with a little more.
- Cold cooked meatThe quantity is unstated. Roughly a cup of chopped leftover beef, lamb or ham to one eggplant gives a filling that holds together without being dense. Anything already seasoned will need less salt.
- The scraped pulpChop the flesh you remove and cook it briefly with the onion and peppers before combining. Raw eggplant pulp releases water in the oven and can leave the stuffing soupy.
- Green peppersIn American usage of this period these generally meant sweet bell peppers rather than chiles. Two is a lot for one eggplant; one large pepper is closer to modern taste.
- The eggOne beaten egg binds the mixture. Mix it in only after the vegetables have cooled a little, or it will set in threads.
- YieldTwo halves, serving two as a main dish or four alongside other courses.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil and published by Procter & Gamble to promote Crisco, which reached the market in 1911; that is why shortening turns up in a stuffed vegetable where a cook of the period would more likely have reached for butter or drippings. The dish itself is older and much travelled: stuffed eggplant belongs to the eastern Mediterranean and the Ottoman kitchen, and is often said to have arrived in American cookbooks through both Creole New Orleans, where eggplant was a staple garden crop, and the general nineteenth-century enthusiasm for filled vegetables. A supper built on cold roast beef and one egg was exactly the kind of economy the format was selling.