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Fried Eggplant
Pare an eggplant, cut in thin slices, sprinkle with salt and pile on a plate. Cover with weight to extract the juice and let stand for one and a half hours, or soak in brine for same time. Dredge with flour and fry slowly until crisp and brown, or dip in egg and crumbs, fry. 1 eggplant 1 cup crumbs
A straightforward method whose only real technique is the salting step, which the original gives more space than anything else for good reason.
- Salt and weightThe 90-minute press under a plate and weight draws out water and bitterness and collapses the sponge-like flesh so it absorbs less oil. Modern eggplant is bred less bitter, but the salting still matters for texture; 30 to 45 minutes is enough with today's fruit. Rinse and press dry between towels before flouring, or the surface will steam rather than brown.
- Brine optionThe book gives no proportion for the brine; a strong salt solution deep enough to cover the slices would suit. Drain and dry thoroughly afterward; wet slices will not take flour.
- Thin slicesAim for about a quarter inch. Thicker rounds need longer in the pan and tend to stay spongy in the middle unless the heat is very low.
- Fry slowlyThe instruction is deliberate. Eggplant needs time for the interior to soften before the crust burns, so medium heat and about a quarter inch of oil in the pan, turning once. High heat gives a dark coating over raw flesh.
- CrumbsA cup of crumbs here means dried bread crumbs made at home, finer and drier than panko and closer to what is now sold as plain breadcrumbs. For the egg-and-crumb version, flour first, then egg, then crumbs, or the coating slides off.
- FatThe recipe does not say what to fry in; lard, drippings or a solid vegetable shortening would all have been usual. Any neutral oil with a reasonably high smoke point works; butter alone will brown too fast at frying temperature.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; one medium eggplant sliced thin will serve about four as a side. Drain on paper and salt lightly at the end, remembering the flesh has already been salted.
Eggplant reached American tables slowly. It was grown in kitchen gardens through the nineteenth century, but is often said to have been regarded with suspicion as a nightshade, and appears in early cookbooks more as a curiosity than a staple. By the time cookbooks like this one were circulating in the early twentieth century, frying was the standard American treatment, and the salt-and-weight step appears to have been a common instruction, on the understanding that the fruit was bitter and waterlogged unless pressed. That may explain the terse style and the bare ingredient list tacked on at the end: it was written for cooks who already knew how to fry, and needed only the proportions.