Tricks of my Trade

Eggplant Provençale

Peel a medium-sized eggplant and cut in large dice. Season with salt and dredge with flour. Heat 2 tablespoons salad oil in a shallow pan until very hot and sauté the eggplant dice until golden-brown. In another pan, heat 2 tablespoons salad oil and in it sauté 4 tomatoes. peeled, seeded, and chopped. Combine the two vegetables, add 2 cloves garlic, crushed, and cook (or a few minutes longer. Serve sprinkled will) parsley.

For a main dish, particularly nice for a meatless luncheon, try eggplant à l'al-gérienne. This has a very small amount of sauce, just enough to spread over the top of the dish. Too much sauce would result in sogginess, the very thing to avoid with eggplant.

Eggplant à l'Algérienne

Prepare about 1 cup cooked rice (pilau or risotto). Clean 8 mushrooms and sauté in 1 tablespoon butter for a few minutes. Add 1 shallot, chopped, or 1 tablespoon chopped onion and 1 tablespoon Hour and mix well. Blend in ½ cup cream and cook, stirring, until it is reduced a little. Season 12 slices eggplant, cut ½ inch thick, with salt and pepper, dip in milk and then in flour, and fry in hot deep fat or sauté in very hot oil until golden-brown. Dip 8 tomato slices, cut ¾ inch thick, in Hour and sauté them in very hot oil. Spread the rice over the bottom of a heated serving dish, place the eggplant and tomato slices on the rice, alternating and overlapping the vegetables. and pour the creamed mushrooms over them.

For scores of people, summertime is lobstertime, probably because lobster dishes are the specialty of so many resort hotels and eating places. But I find that more and more families are serving lobster at home, too. And not just those living on the Eastern Seaboard, because refrigerated freight cars and quick air and motor freight now transport even the most perishable foodstuffs to all sections of the country. In addition, there are companies which ship direct lobsters packed in barrels of ice, timing delivery for the exact day requested. So some helpful pointers on preparing lobster should be very timely.

Broiling seems to be a favorite way of serving lobster. Most people think that splitting a lobster is an insurmountable job. Actually, it isn't difficult. All you need is a good knife, one that is strong, sharp, and has a good point, and the courage to use it on a live, active shell-fish. First, cut off all the claws, both the large and small ones. Then place the lobster on its back on a board or table with the body end nearest you. Plunge the point of the knife into the tail section and cut right down the tail and the body, dividing the lobster in two in one long clean cut. Small lobsters that serve one person are cut not quite through so that they are hinged when you lay them open for broiling. Large ones which will make two servings should be cut right through and separated. With the dull edge of the knife blade, give both sides of each big claw one crack. The reason for this is that broiling makes the shells extremely hard and therefore hard to crack. With this first crack, they will break easily after they are cooked. Cutting off the claws makes it possible to cook more lobsters at a time because the body sections can be ranged close to each other and the claws laid around the edges. When brushing them with butter, brush a little into the cracked part of the claws, too. The small claws are used for making sauces for fish dishes, but they can be broiled, if desired. There isn't much meat in them, but there is considerable flavor.

Broiled Lobster

Remove the claws and split live lobsters lengthwise. Remove the sac behind the head and the dark vein along the back. Season with salt and pepper and brush with butter. Crack both sides of each big claw. Put the lobsters, split side up, on the broiler and lay the claws around. Broil in a preheated broiler for 15 to 18 minutes, having the pan far enough from the heat so they will not scorch. Serve with melted butter and quarters of lemon.

For boiled lobsters, no preparation is needed. They are dropped whole into boiling water. It can be plain salted water or it can be a court-bouillon. When cooking lobsters that have just been pulled from the ocean, less salt is needed in the cooking liquid because they retain quite a bit of saltiness, Lobsters purchased in city markets, however, are kept fresh in ice and lose some of this saltiness.