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Egg Fruit, Stuffed
Take a few of the egg fruits, cut off the ends, divide them in halves, scoop out the interior, salt them, and let them remain for an hour. Chop up some onions and fry them nearly black, add garlic and sage-leaves, a couple of minced tomatoes, pepper and salt, and let the whole brown in the oven. Stuff the "eggs" with this mixture, and dip them in oil. Then place them in a stewpan with a little brown gravy and braise them, or roast them in the oven in oiled paper cases.
"Egg fruit" is the Victorian name for the aubergine, and this is a straightforward stuffed eggplant with a heavily browned onion, tomato and sage filling. The original leaves out every quantity and temperature, so the notes below fill the gaps.
- Egg fruit means aubergineNineteenth-century English cookbooks called the eggplant the egg fruit or egg-apple, after the small white ovoid varieties then grown under glass. Use two medium globe aubergines, about 1 lb each, for four servings, or four of the small slender kinds.
- Cut lengthwise, not crosswise"Divide them in halves" after cutting off the ends gives you halved shells; split them lengthwise so they hold the filling. Scoop out the flesh leaving a shell about half an inch thick. The recipe never says what becomes of the scooped flesh; rather than discard it, you can chop it and add it to the pan with the onions.
- The salting hour still earns its keepAn hour under salt draws out moisture so the shells do not weep in the pan. Modern aubergines are bred far less bitter than Victorian ones, so this is now about texture, not bitterness. Rinse and pat dry before filling, or the finished dish will be too salty.
- "Fry nearly black" needs judgementTake the onions to a deep mahogany brown, not carbon; actual burnt onion turns the whole filling acrid. Ten to fifteen minutes in oil over medium heat gets you where the writer meant to be.
- Quantities for the stuffingFor two large aubergines: two onions, two cloves of garlic, six to eight sage leaves chopped fine, two tomatoes, and (an addition, not in the original) the chopped aubergine flesh. Sage is assertive — err low if you are unsure.
- Oven temperatureBrowning the filling and then baking the stuffed halves both work at 375–400F. Allow 30 to 40 minutes for the stuffed shells until a knife slides through the flesh with no resistance.
- Oiled paper casesThis is the same technique as cooking en papillote. Parchment, brushed with oil, does the same job; foil traps more steam and gives a softer result.
- Braising is the better of the two optionsThe stewpan method — a little brown gravy or stock in the base, lid on, gentle heat for 30 minutes — keeps the shells from drying out and gives you a sauce. Roasting in paper is drier and firmer.
The aubergine reached British kitchens as a hothouse curiosity, and the name used here — egg fruit — records the pale, egg-shaped cultivars grown in Victorian glasshouses before the large purple varieties took over the market. Its placement here, with garlic, tomato, oil and sage, marks the dish as borrowed rather than native: garlic and olive oil were still regarded in late nineteenth-century English cookery as distinctly Mediterranean, and stuffed aubergine of much this shape is at home from Provence to Anatolia. A dictionary of cookery of this kind was in the business of cataloguing everything a well-read household might encounter, including foreign vegetables the reader had probably never bought, which is why the entry explains what to do with the thing but not how much of it to buy.