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Fried Eggplant
(Naples.) Pare and slice and drain 2 large eggplants, dip each slice in egg, crumbs, and grated cheese. Fry till brown, or else arrange on a dish and bake. Serve with white or tomato sauce, or one of capers.
A terse Neapolitan formula that assumes the cook already knows how to bread and fry. The gaps worth filling are the draining step, the coating order, and the oven temperature if you take the baking option.
- "Drain" means salt first"Drain" is most likely shorthand for salting first -- salt the slices generously on both sides and leave them in a colander 30-60 minutes, then blot dry. The recipe does not say so, but that is the usual reading. Salting draws out water so the slices brown rather than steam, and firms them against soaking up oil. Modern eggplant is generally bred for low bitterness, so the salting is largely about texture rather than bitterness.
- Slice thicknessAbout 1/4 inch (6 mm) is right for frying; much thicker and the interior is still spongy when the crust is brown. Peeling is optional with young eggplant, though the original specifies paring.
- The coating orderRead it as flour (optional but helpful), then beaten egg, then a mix of dry breadcrumbs with grated cheese. Mixing the cheese into the crumbs rather than layering it separately gives an even crust that does not shed in the pan.
- The cheeseParmigiano or a dry pecorino, finely grated. Cheese in a crumb coating browns fast, so keep the fat at a steady 350-360F (175-180C) and do not push it hotter or the crust darkens before the flesh softens.
- Frying fatA period Neapolitan kitchen would have used olive oil, shallow, about half an inch deep. Any neutral oil works; fry in batches so the temperature does not crash, and drain on a rack rather than paper to keep the underside crisp.
- If you bake insteadThe original gives no temperature. Arrange the breaded slices on an oiled sheet, brush or spray the tops with oil, and bake at 425F (220C) for 20-25 minutes, turning once. Without the oil they will be dry and pale.
- The saucesWhite sauce here is a plain bechamel; the caper sauce would most likely be that same white sauce, or melted butter sharpened with lemon, with drained capers stirred in at the end. Tomato is the most obviously Neapolitan of the three.
- YieldTwo large eggplants sliced this thin give a generous quantity, enough for six as a side dish or four as a light main course. Fried slices are best eaten within minutes; they soften as they sit.
This is a plain relative of the dish that became melanzane alla parmigiana: the same slices, the same egg-and-crumb coat, the same grated cheese, simply served with a sauce alongside rather than layered and baked in it. Eggplant is generally held to have reached southern Italy through Arab Sicily, and it was long regarded with suspicion further north, which is part of why so many of the dishes built around it are Neapolitan, Sicilian or Calabrian in origin. The parenthetical "(Naples.)" places the dish by city, as the book does elsewhere.