How To Make Eggplant Parmesan
Eggplant parmiggiana as my grandmother used to make it.
Ingredients
- 4 Eggplants
- Salt & Black Pepper
- 3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small Onion
- 1 Garlic clove
- 3 1/2 cup Tomato sauce
- 10 Basil leaves
- Olive oil for frying
- 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- To prepare eggplant parmesan according to the traditional Sicilian recipe, start by washing the eggplants well.
- Dry them and cut them into not too thin slices (5mm).
- As you cut them, place them in a colander and sprinkle them with a little fine salt. Form layers, sprinkling each layer with salt.
- Then take a weight (such as a large pot full of water) and place it on top of the eggplant, so that it keeps it well pressed down. Underneath the colander place a plate and leave the eggplant to drain for at least an hour. (1*)
- While the eggplants are purging you can prepare the sauce: finely chop the onion and cut the garlic in half, removing the central part. Fry the garlic and onion in 3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil.
- When the onion has become transparent, add the tomato pulp, a pinch of salt and pepper, and close the pot with the lid. Let it cook on low heat for 15-20 minutes, then turn off the heat and remove the garlic.
- After an hour, remove the weight from the eggplants, squeeze them one by one and rinse them under water to remove the salt.
- Then dry them carefully with a clean cloth .
- Heat plenty of olive oil in a thick-bottomed pan, then fry the eggplant a few at a time for about 3 minutes, turning halfway through cooking.
- When they are just golden, drain them well and let them dry on a sheet of kitchen paper that will absorb the excess oil.
- While they are still hot, salt them lightly.
- Now that all the ingredients are ready you can assemble your Sicilian style eggplant parmigiana.
- Spread the bottom of an ovenproof dish with a ladleful of tomato sauce.
- Arrange the fried eggplant next to each other without overlapping. Cover with a generous amount of tomato sauce garnished with fresh basil leaves.
- Cover everything with abundant grated cheese. Continue forming another layer of eggplant and tomato seasoned with basil and Parmesan cheese, until all the ingredients are used up.
- Preheat the oven to 180 C degrees (350 F degrees ) and bake the eggplant parmigiana for about 30 minutes in static mode.
- At the end of cooking, if the surface has not yet taken color, you can briefly turn on the grill.
- Take the parmigiana out of the oven and let it cool.
- Top with fresh basil leaves and enjoy!
Notes
1* You will see that from the colander will come out some dark liquid, that is the water contained in the eggplants themselves. This step of salting the eggplants, although a bit boring, is very important for two reasons: first because it allows you to eliminate the possible bitter aftertaste of the eggplants themselves.
In this way the eggplants will lose their water and will be less spongy, thus absorbing less oil during cooking.
In this way the eggplants will lose their water and will be less spongy, thus absorbing less oil during cooking.
