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Egg Plant Stuffed
Cut the plant in two parts lengthwise and scoop out the meat, leaving the rind about one-half inch thick that the shape may be firm. Chop the pulp fine, season it with salt and pepper, add one tablespoon of butter, and cook in a fryingpan for ten minutes, stirring well; then add one scanty half-cup of water and one cup of bread crumbs. Sprinkle the interior of the shells with salt and pepper, and fill them with the mixture. Spread one cup of crumbs on the surface of the mixture, place the two pieces of plant in a baking-dish or deep pan, and pour enough hot water into the pan to come half-way up the sides of the plant. Bake one hour, and serve hot on a napkin. This dish will be found very delicate, and may be served as a vegetable or an entrée.
A straightforward stuffed eggplant that relies on a water bath rather than fat to keep the shells tender. A few of its assumptions need translating.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, about 350F, suits it; an hour at that heat should do for a medium eggplant sitting in a water bath.
- Salt the shells and waitSeason the hollowed shells with salt, let them stand fifteen minutes, and blot the beads of moisture before filling. Salting was traditionally held to draw the bitterness out of older varieties; what it reliably does is season the flesh and reduce the water it gives up.
- The water bath is deliberateThe water bath -- Pouring hot water halfway up the shells appears intended to steam the rind from below while the crumb top browns. Skipping or reducing it risks tough skin and scorched edges before the interior softens.
- Bread crumbsSoft crumbs from stale bread, not dry commercial crumbs, which absorb too much liquid. The recipe uses two cups in total: one worked into the filling, one spread over the top.
- "One scanty half-cup"Slightly less than half a cup, roughly 100 ml. It is there only to loosen the pulp before the crumbs go in; add it gradually, since a watery eggplant may need almost none.
- Ten minutes in the pan is not long enough for a large plantCook the chopped pulp until it collapses and no longer tastes raw, which may take fifteen minutes rather than the ten given.
- Browning the topToss the topping crumbs with a little melted butter, or the surface may stay pale and dry in the humid oven.
- Yield and serviceOne medium eggplant, halved, serves two as a vegetable course or four as a small entree. "Serve hot on a napkin" means a folded linen napkin on the platter to absorb steam and keep the halves from sliding; a warmed dish does the same work.
Eggplant took a long time to become respectable in English-language cookery, and books of this period still felt obliged to reassure the reader, hence the closing note that the dish is "very delicate." American cookbooks of the 1880s and 1890s often printed it as "egg plant," two words, a name usually traced to the small white ovoid varieties that genuinely resemble hen's eggs. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, issued its cook book for the same middle-class household that bought its sewing patterns. The offer to serve it "as a vegetable or an entree" is a period habit as well: in a menu of many courses, a stuffed vegetable could stand in for a meat entree.