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Fried Eggplant II
Pare an egg-plant, cut in one-fourth inch slices, and soak over night in cold salted water. Drain, let stand in cold water one-half hour, drain again, and dry between towels. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip in batter, or dip in flour, egg, and crumbs, and fry in deep fat.
A straightforward deep-fried eggplant, with an overnight soak that modern cooks can shorten considerably.
- The overnight soakSalting draws out moisture and, in older varieties, bitterness. Today's cultivated eggplant is bred to be mild, so 30-45 minutes salted, either in brine or salted dry on a rack, does everything the overnight soak did.
- Drying matters mostWet slices will not hold a coating and will spit violently in the fat. Press them firmly between towels until the surface is dry to the touch before seasoning.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no thermometer reading; modern practice for deep-frying eggplant is around 365-375F. Below that the slices drink oil and go greasy; above it the crumbs brown before the flesh is tender.
- Slice thicknessA quarter inch is thin enough that the flesh cooks through in the time the coating takes to colour; thicker slices can stay spongy inside.
- Salt twice, lightlyThe slices have been in salted water, though the half hour in plain cold water afterwards draws much of it back out; season lightly before breading and taste before adding more.
- The batter optionFarmer gives fritter batters elsewhere in the book. The flour-egg-crumb route gives a crisper, more durable crust.
- YieldOne medium eggplant, about 1 lb, gives four servings as a side. Fry in batches and hold on a rack in a 200F oven rather than stacking on paper, which steams the crust soft.
Eggplant reached American tables slowly; it is often said that through much of the nineteenth century it was grown as often for ornament as for food, and cookbooks felt obliged to explain what to do with it. By the time Fannie Farmer compiled the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book in 1896 it had a secure if modest place in the vegetable chapter, almost always fried, sometimes stuffed. The long soak in salted water is generally traced to the era of older, seedier varieties that genuinely were bitter, and it seems to have been a common treatment in English and American books alike. That Farmer gives a second version at all may suggest the vegetable was familiar enough in Boston kitchens to want variety, though this is speculation, and the deep-fat frying is characteristic of the school's method-driven approach: a technique taught once and then applied across oysters, croquettes, doughnuts and vegetables alike.