No. 2735

Eggplant a la Duperret-Broiled

Aubergines Grillees a la Duperret

Peel some eggplants, cut them up into three-eighths of an inch thick slices, each one to be three inches in diameter; season with salt, pepper, oil and vinegar, and let marinate for two hours, then drain off and dry; baste over with oil and broil them on a slow fire; dress with maitre-d'hotel butter (No. 581) poured over.

Eggplant can also be prepared by cutting it up three-quarters of an inch in thickness and three inches in diameter; score and besprinkle with fine salt; leave for one hour, then wipe dry and season with salt and black or red pepper, pour over a little oil, and turn them frequently before broiling to a fine color on a slow fire. Fry a little well-chopped shallot, mushroom and parsley in butter, season with salt and pepper, add a little espagnole sauce (No. 414), and lemon juice. Dish up the eggplant and pour the sauce over after incorporating a small piece of fresh butter.

← No. 2734 Cucumbers Stuffed Tomatoes, Corn & Garden Vegetables No. 2736 Eggplant in Cases a la Morton →

For the Modern Kitchen

Two variants of the same idea: thick rounds of eggplant, drawn and seasoned, grilled slowly over gentle heat, then finished with a compound butter or a shallot-mushroom sauce. Both stand or fall on the heat being low enough to cook the interior before the surface chars.

"A slow fire"A bed of coals past their peak, or a grill with the eggplant set away from the hottest zone; the book gives no temperature. Under a broiler, place the rack in the lower position rather than the top slot. Eggplant cut this thick leathers over high heat before the flesh collapses into creaminess.
The two hour marinadeIn the first version the salt-oil-vinegar soak does the same work as salting: it draws water out so the slices grill rather than steam. Drain and blot thoroughly or the surface oil will flare and the slices will stew in their own liquid.
Salting and bitternessSalting -- the second version's hour under fine salt was, by the usual period reasoning, aimed at bitterness as much as at moisture. Modern cultivars are generally far less bitter, so salting now mostly serves texture and seasoning; a shorter salting will do, and the slices still need wiping dry.
ScoringCutting a shallow crosshatch into the thicker three-quarter-inch rounds lets heat and seasoning reach the middle. Keep the cuts to about a third of the depth so the slice holds together when turned.
Maître d'hôtel butterMa u00eetre d'h u00f4tel butter -- Ranhofer's No. 581 is a compound butter, butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice and seasoning. Make it ahead, chill it into a log, and lay coins of it on the hot eggplant so it melts at the table.
EspagnoleThe brown mother sauce of No. 414 takes the better part of a day. A well-reduced brown veal or beef stock, lightly thickened, gives the same body; the shallot, mushroom and parsley fried in butter carry most of the flavour in any case.
Finishing the sauceThe final knob of cold butter is whisked in off the heat. Once it is in, the sauce must not boil or it will separate.
YieldA medium globe eggplant gives six to eight three-inch rounds at the thicker cut, enough for two to three as a side dish. Serve at once; grilled eggplant goes flabby as it cools.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) recorded the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and the naming convention here is standard French practice at the time: dishes were dedicated to patrons, colleagues and public figures, and "à la Duperret" tells the reader nothing about the method, only that someone at Delmonico's had a reason to honour the name. Eggplant reached American tables slowly, treated well into the nineteenth century more as an ornamental than a vegetable, and it entered fine dining largely through French and Mediterranean cooking, where it had long been at home. Ranhofer devotes a run of consecutive entries to it — broiled, in cases, stuffed — which suggests it had become an expected item on a large restaurant's vegetable list by the 1890s, even as it may well have remained less familiar in ordinary domestic cookery of the same decade.