Part 16

The egg plant, or Aubergine, is very little cultivated in this country. Even under glass it is not raised very successfully. It might be worth while trying it on the lines of vegetable marrow culture, or rather on that of outdoor tomatoes. In this case the seed should be sown in heat in March, the seedlings potted up in 48-sized pots and kept growing in the hotbed; as soon as the pots are full of roots repot into larger, and so on until the end of May, when the plants should be gradually hardened off and finally planted in rich soil in a sunny, sheltered position about 14th June. Copious watering must be given, the fruits thinned, and the plant should be pinched back in the way of tomatoes when sufficient are set.

The fruit is ready to gather when of a fair size, and the flavour is more delicious if gathered before too old. Generally speaking, the fruit is ready to use from August onwards. The French scoop out the seeds and stuff the interior with minced herbs, bread-crumbs, raw eggs, and lemon juice; then serve with butter. The white kind generally grown for ornament is not so well flavoured as the purple, known as the Aubergine.

DISHES.

=Escalloped Egg Plant.=--Boil a large egg plant until tender, peel and mash, season with butter, pepper, and salt; add two hard-boiled eggs chopped finely, and half an onion grated. Add two tablespoonfuls of cream; serve on croûtons very hot.

=Caponata= (A Sicilian Dish).--Peel eight aubergines, cut them into little pieces; sprinkle these pieces with salt to get rid of the bitterness, and fry them. Cut up an onion, fry it lightly in oil, and when it is yellow-brown add to it a head of celery well cleaned, and also cut in pieces. When all this has cooked about three minutes, add capers and olives stoned and cut up in quarters. Then add the purée you have prepared from two pounds of tomatoes, with a little vinegar and a little sugar, enough to make an acid-sweet sauce, cook it all together for a short time, then add the fried egg plant to the mixture, and serve up on a hot dish.

=Egg Plant Stuffed with Nuts.=--Boil an egg plant fruit until tender. Split and scoop out the pulp. Add a cupful of chopped nuts to one tablespoonful each of butter and bread-crumbs, salt and pepper to season. Mix with two eggs well beaten, fill the shells, and bake for an hour.

=Egg Plant Baked with Tomato Sauce.=--Cut a slice from the top of an egg plant fruit and scoop out the pulp. Remove the seeds, and soak the pulp in salted water for half an hour. Squeeze dry, chop three boiled onions finely, and cook for twenty minutes with half the contents of a can of tomatoes, adding a bay leaf, a clove, and two sprigs of parsley, and a teaspoonful of sugar. Rub through a fine sieve. Soak a cupful of bread-crumbs in milk, squeeze dry, and mix with the egg plant pulp, and half of the tomato sauce. Add the yolks of two eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, and salt and pepper to season. Mix thoroughly, fill the shell of the egg plant, sprinkle with crumbs and bake for forty minutes, basting with olive oil. Reheat the remainder of the purée; season with salt and pepper, and add a little butter, then serve separately as a sauce.

=Egg Plant à la Provence.=--Slice and soak two small egg plant fruits, drain, and dip in oil, and broil. Put them into a saucepan which has been rubbed with garlic, add a chopped onion, a tablespoonful of butter or oil, a teaspoonful each of minced parsley and anchovy paste, a cupful of stewed strained tomatoes, salt and pepper to season. Cook until tender, and serve on toast or with macaroni.

=Stuffed Egg Plant.=--Boil an egg plant fruit till tender; remove from the hull, being careful to save as many pieces of hull as you wish to serve. Mix with the pulp one or two tomatoes, chopped nuts, toasted rolled dry biscuit crumbs. Season with chopped onions, red and black pepper, and salt. Fry in hot butter, fill the pieces of hull with this mixture; sprinkle with dry biscuit crumbs and bits of butter, and bake brown.

=Stuffed with Tomatoes.=--Parboil an egg plant fruit for ten minutes, drain, cool, cut in two lengthwise. Scoop out the pulp and mix with a cupful of chopped tomatoes, and minced green pepper free from seeds, also a cupful of bread-crumbs. Season with salt, pepper, and melted butter. Fill the shells, bind them together with tape, and bake, basting frequently with melted butter and hot water. Take up on a hot plate; remove the strings, and pour a hot tomato sauce around the egg plant.

ENDIVE (Cichorium Endivia. Ord. Compositæ).

Though with care this excellent salad may be grown for a large part of the year, yet we find that it has an incurable tendency to bolt in hot weather, and, after all, if one has lettuce one can do without endive; therefore in the small garden we prefer to grow it as an autumn and winter crop, and it is this very lateness that makes endive so useful.

Endive should be sown in mid-July; this sowing may be followed by a second about the 7th of August. As soon as the plants are large enough to handle they must be pricked out nine inches apart, in a patch of well-prepared ground, well watered in, and kept watered through dry weather until rain shall have settled them in.

To be properly enjoyed, endive must be blanched for use; this is effected by either tying the leaves together, as certain lettuces are still treated, or flower-pots may be inverted over the plants, a piece of slate or other covering ensuring perfect darkness. As soon as blanched, endive must be used, as it soon rots after the process is complete; therefore but few plants should be tied at a time, and tying should be done weekly.

The first sowing may well be of curled endive, but the second should certainly be of the Batavian or broad-leaved kind; this is hardier, and stands winter cold and damp better.

In September, say about the 7th, the frame should be filled with broad-leaved endive. The lights should be kept off as long as frosts will allow, and the plants kept perfectly hardy. When the lights go on the plants should be kept almost dry, little or no water being given. The plants in the frame may easily be blanched by shaking clean straw or hay over that part of the frame that is to be blanched. With this treatment endive should certainly be in use at the turn of the year.

=Baked Endives.=--After trimming and washing some heads of endive put them in salted water, with a few drops of lemon juice. Drain them, pour a little white sauce into a buttered fireproof dish, then add the endives with a little vegetable stock; the white sauce should be sufficient to cover the endive. Then add grated Gruyère and Parmesan cheese, bake, and serve.

FENNEL (Fœniculum officinale. Umbelliferæ).

Usually propagated by division of old plants in March. Plants should stand in rows fifteen inches apart, the plants one foot in the row. Any good rich garden soil will suit fennel, which is a perennial and long-lived subject. The flowering heads should be removed as they appear. Gather the youngest and freshest leaves for use as required.

It is a most delightful vegetable, very little known in this country. It can be had at Italian greengrocers if not procurable elsewhere. It can be cooked in stock, like celery and chicory, and served with any rich sauce.

=Fennel Sauce.=--Pick the leaves from the stalks, wash them well, then put them into boiling water, and boil until tender about three-quarters of an hour, drain off the water, and chop them finely. Stir them into half a pint of boiling white sauce, and simmer for ten minutes slowly.

GOOD KING HENRY (Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus. Chenopodiaceæ).

This is a perennial plant of easy culture. Sow in a seed bed early in April, and as soon as large enough prick the seedlings out six inches apart. When well grown plant out in permanent bed fifteen inches apart. The leaves are used in the same way as spinach.

GOURDS (Cucurbita. Cucurbitaceæ).

Sow in hotbed early in April, and keep on growing in pots until the end of May, when the plants may be hardened off and planted out in sunny positions. It is well to take out a hole two feet square and fill it with a rich compost for the roots to run in. The fruit should be thinned if good examples are required, and the plants must have plenty of water. Gourds may be trained over trellis or arbour.

DISHES.

=Pumpkins with Cheese.=--Cut twelve young pumpkins about the size of a small egg into four pieces, and remove the seeds and pulp. Put them into a saucepan (earthenware for choice), add butter and salt, and cook over a hot fire, shaking from time to time. Place them in a dish and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese. Add a tablespoonful of stock to some tomato sauce. Pour it over the pumpkins, and serve hot.

=Fried Pumpkin.=--Dip pieces of squash into batter, and fry in deep fat, or mix two cupfuls of mashed, cooked squash with three well-beaten eggs, two tablespoonfuls of cream, one tablespoonful of melted butter, and flour enough to make a smooth batter. Fry by spoonfuls on a griddle or in a frying pan.