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Baked Egg-Plant
Wash the egg-plant, put it in a kettle, cover with boiling water, and boil until tender (about a half hour), then take it out carefully, cut it in halves, and scoop out the soft portion, leaving the skin unbroken. Mash the egg-plant fine, add to it a large tablespoonful of butter, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well, and put back into the skin. Sprinkle the top lightly with bread crumbs, and put in the oven to brown.
FRIED EGG-PLANT No. I Sprinkle Pare the egg-plant, and cut in very thin slices. each slice with salt and pepper, pile them evenly, put a tin plate over them, and on this stand a flat-iron to press out the juice. Let stand one hour. Beat an egg lightly, and add to it a tablespoonful of boiling water, dip each slice first in this and then in bread crumbs. Put three tablespoonfuls of lard or dripping in a frying pan; when hot, sauté the slices, a few at a time, brown one side, then turn and brown the other. As the fat is consumed, add more, waiting each time for it to heat before putting in the eggplant. Drain on brown paper, and serve very hot. Tomato catsup should be served with it.
FRIED EGG-PLANT No. 2 Pare the egg-plant, and cut it in slices about a quarter of an inch thick, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dredge thickly with flour, and sauté as directed in preceding recipe.
Three related preparations on one page: a boiled-and-stuffed eggplant and two fried versions. The instructions are sound, but a few assumptions belong to a coal-range kitchen.
- Oven heat"Put in the oven to brown" implies a hot oven; the book gives no temperature, but roughly 400-425F for 15-20 minutes, or a few minutes under the broiler, will do it. The filling is already cooked, so you are only setting the crumbs.
- Boiling versus roastingHalf an hour of boiling leaves the flesh waterlogged. Pricking the eggplant and baking it whole at 400F until collapsed, about 40 minutes, gives the same scoopable pulp with far less water to drain off.
- Salting and pressingThe flat-iron trick is the hinge of Fried No. 1. A weighted plate for an hour draws out juice so the slices brown rather than steam; a couple of cans or a heavy pot does the same work. Blot the slices dry before egging them or the crumbs slide.
- Modern eggplant is less bitterThe salting was partly for bitterness, which modern globe eggplants are generally reckoned to have far less of. It is still worth doing for texture, and salted flesh is usually found to absorb less frying fat.
- FatsLard or beef dripping give the flavor the author expected. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point works; keep it at 350–360F and let it come back up to heat between batches, exactly as the recipe insists.
- Brown paperBrown paper was a usual drain in kitchens of this period. Use a wire rack over a sheet pan -- paper towels trap steam and soften the crust.
- Egg washOne egg loosened with a tablespoon of boiling water is a thin wash by design; it coats without gumming. Expect to beat a second egg if the eggplant is large.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; one medium eggplant of about 1 lb will serve two to three as a side dish, or four sparingly. The recipe calls for tomato catsup with the fried version, and it still suits.
Eggplant reached American kitchens by way of the South and the Mediterranean, and through the nineteenth century it was treated with a certain suspicion — a member of the nightshade family, and often said to have been grown as an ornamental as much as a vegetable. By the end of the century it seems to have been an established summer vegetable in eastern markets. Frying in slices, with the juice pressed out under a weight, was a common American method well into the twentieth century; the flat-iron standing on a tin plate is a good reminder that the laundry equipment and the kitchen equipment were the same equipment. The instruction to serve tomato catsup alongside places the recipe firmly in its period, when catsup was a table condiment offered with fried and boiled foods generally rather than a specialty of potatoes.