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Egg-Plant Au Gratin
1 egg-plant. I heaping tablespoonful chopped lean bacon 6 chopped mushrooms 2 chopped shallots I heaping tablespoonful chopped suet 2 heaping tablespoonfuls (2 ozs.) butter 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley 2 tablespoonfuls bread crumbs 1 tablespoonful milk 2 tablespoonfuls grated cheese 1 egg Some white sauce Seasoning of salt, pepper, paprika, and grated nutmeg
The page has come down to us as an ingredient list with the method lost, and — more awkwardly — with no egg-plant in it. Read it as the stuffing and topping for two medium aubergines, and fill in the technique from standard practice.
- The missing vegetableThe quantities would roughly suit two medium egg-plants, halved lengthwise, the flesh scooped out to leave a thin shell, chopped and worked into the mixture. Without an egg-plant the list is a duxelles with cheese.
- SuetChopped beef suet is a hard shredded kidney fat, sold by butchers and in boxes as "shredded suet." A heaping tablespoonful is about 15 g. Substitute finely chopped fatback or simply increase the bacon; the point is fat that renders slowly and enriches the stuffing.
- ShallotsTwo shallots in British-influenced usage means two small bulbs, not two cloves off a large one — roughly two tablespoons chopped.
- Bacon"Lean bacon" means a cut with little fat, such as trimmed back bacon rather than streaky. Modern bacon is often fattier and may be more heavily cured, so taste before adding the salt.
- White sauce"Some" is genuinely unquantified. About half a cup of bechamel will bind the filling without making it sloppy. The separate tablespoon of milk is probably for moistening the crumbs rather than for the sauce, though the text does not say.
- Salting the fleshToss the chopped egg-plant with salt and drain twenty minutes before cooking. Older varieties were bitter and this was assumed; modern ones are not, but the draining still keeps the filling from going watery.
- OvenNo temperature or time is given. A moderately hot oven, around 400F, suits a gratin; allow roughly half an hour to cook the shells through, then finish uncovered until the crumb-and-cheese topping browns.
- YieldTwo halves each, so two as a light supper or four as a side.
Egg-plant was still a faintly foreign vegetable in English-speaking homes, associated with French and Italian cookery, which is why the treatment here is thoroughly French — a bacon-and-mushroom hash close to a duxelles, bound with bechamel and finished au gratin, a phrase that refers to the browned crust rather than to the cheese, though cheese usually makes it.