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Egg-Plants in the Oven
(Melanzane al forno) Skin five or six egg-plants, cut them in round slices and salt them so that they throw out the water that they contain. After a few hours dip in flour and frying oil.
Take a fireproof vase or baking tin and place the slices in layers, with grated cheese between each layer, abundantly seasoned with tomato sauce (No. 12).
Beat one egg with a pinch of salt, a tablespoonful of tomato sauce, a teaspoonful of grated cheese and two of crumbs of bread, and cover the upper layer with this sauce. Put the vase in the oven and when the egg is coagulated, serve hot. 103
This is an early, restrained ancestor of eggplant parmigiana, finished with a beaten-egg topping rather than melted cheese. The instructions are compressed to the point of shorthand in two places, so read them carefully before starting.
- "Dip in flour and frying oil"This means dredge the salted slices in flour and fry them in oil, not that flour and oil are combined. Fry in shallow oil until golden on both sides and drain on paper before layering, or the finished dish will be greasy.
- Salting timeThe "few hours" is longer than most modern cooks need. Thirty to sixty minutes under salt will draw out water and help keep the slices from soaking up oil; rinse briefly and pat thoroughly dry before flouring.
- How much eggplantThe recipe does not say what size. Five or six smallish eggplants come to roughly 2 1/2 to 3 lb; two large globe eggplants can be substituted, and the layers scaled to whatever baking dish you have.
- "Fireproof vase"A flameproof or ovenproof earthenware dish. Any modern ceramic, glass or metal baking dish serves; the word carries no implication of shape beyond deep enough for layers.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, 375F, sets the egg topping and heats the layers through in 20 to 30 minutes without scorching the cheese.
- The cheese"grated cheese" here is most likely Parmesan or a hard grating pecorino. The recipe gives no quantity for the layers; bear in mind that the topping carries cheese as well.
- Tomato sauce No. 12The book's own numbered tomato sauce. Any thick, well-reduced tomato sauce works, but keep it thick: a watery sauce will pool under the fried slices.
- Judging donenessThe dish is ready when the egg topping is coagulated, meaning set and no longer glossy, with the sauce bubbling at the edges. Let it rest five to ten minutes so the layers hold together when cut.
Melanzane al forno belongs to the family of baked eggplant dishes from southern Italy that eventually consolidated into what is now sold everywhere as melanzane alla parmigiana. The construction here is the older and simpler one: slices salted, floured, fried and layered with grated hard cheese and tomato sauce, then sealed with a beaten egg thickened with breadcrumbs rather than blanketed in mozzarella, which is often said to be a later addition to the pattern. The eggplant itself is generally traced to Sicily and the south by way of Arab cultivation well before it was accepted in northern Italian kitchens, and Italian cookbooks of the nineteenth century are often described as still feeling obliged to argue for it. This version comes from The Italian Cook Book, compiled by Maria Gentile and published in New York in 1919 for an American readership then encountering southern Italian cooking through immigrant kitchens; its cross-references to numbered sauces show it was written as a working manual rather than a curiosity.