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Eggplant Fritters
Boil the eggplant in salted water mixed with a little lemon juice; when tender, skin, drain and mash them. For every pint of pulp add half a breakfast cupful of flour, take two well-beaten eggs and season with salt and pepper to taste. Shape into small fritters, put them in boiling fat, and fry both sides until brown.
Eggplant, Lyonnese Peel the eggplant and cut it into round slices about one-third of an inch thick. Peel and slice a couple of onions, place them in a stewpan with plenty of butter and fry them until lightly browned; then put in the slices of eggplant, season to taste with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg, pour over a small quantity of stock and stew gently until tender. When cooked, stew a moderate quantity of finely-minced parsley over the eggplant, turn it onto a hot dish with the sauce over it, and serve.
Two eggplant preparations run together in one entry, as often happens in Oscar's book. Both are straightforward; the main work is getting the water out of the eggplant so the fritters hold and the Lyonnaise slices brown rather than steam.
- Drain hard, then drain againBoiled eggplant carries an enormous amount of water, and pulp that has only been tipped into a colander will make batter that spreads in the fat. Press the mash in a sieve or twist it in a clean towel until it stops weeping before adding flour and egg.
- A breakfast cupfulA breakfast cup is roughly 8 to 10 fluid ounces, so read it as about half a cup of flour to a pint (2 cups) of pulp. Add it gradually; wetter pulp will want more.
- Frying temperature"Boiling fat" means fat hot enough to sizzle briskly; in modern terms deep frying is usually done around 350-375F. Cooler than that and the fritters absorb grease; hotter and the outside colors before the inside sets.
- Lemon in the cooking waterThe acid keeps the cut flesh from browning as it softens. It is not a flavoring here, and a tablespoon or two in the pot is plenty.
- "Stew a moderate quantity of parsley"Read as strew. The parsley is scattered over the finished dish, not cooked into it.
- Stock for the Lyonnaise"A small quantity" means a few tablespoons, enough to keep the pan from catching while the eggplant softens. Too much and you get a stew rather than the buttery, lightly glazed slices intended.
- Modern eggplant needs no degorgingDegorging -- older varieties are often said to have been more bitter, and salting before cooking was a common recommendation. Modern eggplant is generally mild, and salting mainly serves to draw off moisture, which matters more for the fritters than for the braise. Note that this recipe does not degorge at all; it boils the eggplant in salted water.
- YieldThe recipe states no yield; a pint of pulp with the flour and eggs would make perhaps a dozen small fritters.
Oscar Tschirky's 1896 book sets down a large working repertoire rather than only showpieces, and two eggplant preparations run together on one page, as often happens in it. "Lyonnese" is the anglicized lyonnaise, the standard kitchen shorthand for anything cooked with sliced onions browned in butter, named for Lyon and its association with onion cookery; the same term attaches to potatoes, tripe and sauces throughout the classical repertoire.