Monday, August 24, 2009

For sidhra



"Watermelons running through the onions? Yikes!"

2 comments:

xan said...

Re: your watermelon situation. I have a similar phenomena although I think (based on size of blossoms) that the intruder is cucumber. Volunteer from an earlier year, it came up on either side of the herb row and assaulted the fennel. Which is ok as i have no real idea what to do with fennel anyway and besides which hate licorice.

Re: your eggplant situation, an offering from Mrs. Haskell's 1861 "Housekeeper's Encyclopedia":

"To Cook Egg Plant, No. 1: Select long purple of possible; the next best is the round kind with prickles on the stem. Peel and slice them, spread salt on each separate piece, and lay them in a colander to drain; let them lie one hour, parboil, and fry them, until thoroughly cooked, in pork fat or butter; egg plants, unless well cooked, are insipid, and even disgusting; they must be cooked through and browned.

(2 and 3: Parboil after salting, fry in butter, with or without flour coating)

No. 4: Egg Plant Fritters. Omit the laying in salt, boil in water until perfectly tender, make a batter, and beat the plant in it; there must be but little batter, just enough to hold the egg plant together; the cakes should be rather salt, but after the first cake is baked, if not sufficiently seasoned, more can be added; bake on a griddle. These are all excellent methods for cooking this vegetable, and make variety; there is no vegetable as poor as the egg plant when half cooked."

(methinks Mrs. Haskell was not a big eggplant fan. But there ya go.) :)

ina said...

Ha!