My mother called me today because I think she is feeling the crunch of our time together. My phone plan is up in June and I announced over the holidays that once gone, I will no longer keep in touch with the family. In a panic, she has called me regularly--almost too regularly--and tonight while cooking dinner she accosted me about my Eggplant Parmesan recipe and methods.
Here you go, mom. Now stop calling me.
I made bread today, but the outcome was laughable, so I will not be sharing this with you...yet. Instead, I bought french bread at the grocery store. Much less laughable, but I still managed to make it taste somewhat sickening with jarred minced garlic. I never said I wasn't a lazy cook. Sometimes.
Let's get started with the goods.
EGGPLANT PARMESAN
If you're not a total food whore who can't seem to control yourself, this should feed about 4
Here's what you'll need:
1 eggplant
4 ripe tomatoes (not roma...go with something nice and meaty)
1 red onion
6 cloves chopped garlic
1 handful of fresh basil
1 handful of fresh oregano
2 eggs
Bread crumbs, homemade or store bought...let your energy level direct you on this
Fresh mozzarella
Fresh parmesan
Salt
Olive oil
Let's get er done.
At some point, you're going to have to do a little frying. A little tip: I like to use a cast iron skillet for this for many reasons. I am much more satisfied with the general outcome because the skillet cooks much more evenly. Also, they are SO cheap. If you can't manage to save up a few dimes because you just can't stop spending your money on worthless crap, drop ten laundry dollars on a skillet. It is a worthwhile investment, as you can use it both in the stove and in the oven. I have made anything from frittatas to cinnamon rolls in these babies.
Ok, so the eggplant.
Here's what I do first. This is something I've fought with my mother about and was sure to announce it over the phone that I have superior eggplant parmesan because I do this:
If you search this on the interweb you will find people who swear by this method and people who ignore it in passing. Well, the latter is WRONG. Here is why I "swear" by it (note: I swear by nothing): salting draws out the water in the eggplant and if, like me, you use a homemade sauce, the eggplant will absorb the flavor from the olive oil and the tomatoes. This is also helpful if, like me, you inadvertently buy old eggplant that is already browning in the middle, hence making it more bitter and less desirable.
Like me, bitter and undesirable.
Either way, since you're reading this blog, listen to me because I'm right. To salt, grab a colander and put a towel underneath it. Slice your eggplant about 1/4 inch thick and, as expected, salt this shit out of that stuff. Then move on to your sauce.
The sauce is pretty simple. Since you are concentrating on the eggplant, I like to not make a really exciting sauce. You don't want to impress people too much, otherwise they will annoy you endlessly until you start taking pictures of your food and posting it on the internet. And then they will make fun of you for taking the pictures as well as leave inappropriate comments on your blog as well as your phone.
Moving on...
Start your sauce by putting a sauce pan on medium heat and throwing in a little olive oil. Interesting fact, the lower quality your olive oil, the higher the acid count. Also, this is meaningless, because the standards for olive oil in America are so pathetic and vague, even an extra virgin olive oil can have high acidity. So just buy whatever crap you want (though I would always suggest trying to find something tasty and not made of plastic).
When your pan is heated a bit, throw in your onion and let it soften. It'll be about 5 minutes. When it starts to get a little brown, throw in your chopped garlic, like this:
Cut up your tomatoes in chunks. Here's a little secret: tomatoes are a HUGE pain in the ass to cut. That's actually not much of a secret. If you don't have a super high quality knife like moi, it makes cutting them annoying because they get all squishy and the juice gets all over your cutting board. No wooden spoon could save you from this embarrassment. My secret is, use a steak knife. Some people like to use bread knives, but I think they are too big, so a little steak knife will cut right through those suckers and keep the tomato intact. Give it a try.
After you've added the tomatoes, throw in your basil and oregano and mix around with your wooden spoon. Add a little salt and cover. NOW, if you can't seem to get rid of the shakes because you've been binge drinking on unemployment for the last year, you might want to consider this little delicious trick: add 1/2 cup of vodka to the onions and let cook for 1 minute before you add the tomatoes. I know it may be hard to give up that impending buzz, but it's for a good cause. Trust me. It adds a nice little kick to your sauce and can be coupled with the deliciousness of some crushed red pepper. Not for the faint of heart.
Cover your sauce and put on a low heat. It will start to get nice and liquidy. Once it does this, you can start tasting it and adding some salt until you are completely satisfied. Don't add too much salt, because you don't want to mask the taste of the eggplant and the fresh cheeses.
By now, all the water is drawn out of your eggplant. Rinse it off a bit just to get the salt off and pat dry with a cloth.
Take your two eggs, smack them around a bit (beat them), and put your bread crumbs in a bowl.
If you want to be all fancy and make your own bread crumbs, it's really easy. Just get yourself a nice nasty crusty bread and cut into little pieces. Throw in the oven at 300 degrees or so and let the bread dry out. For italian style, you'll want to finely chop some thyme, oregano and basil. Stir those spices together and grate a good deal of fresh parmesan in it. Add a little salt. Then you'll just make crumbs out of the dried bread. This is easiest in a food processor.
Heat up your skillet on medium high and throw a layer of olive oil in. Start dipping your eggplant in the egg and then the crumbs and throw in the skillet. You don't need to cook the eggplant, you're just looking to fry the outside quickly. You'll need to replenish the oil while you're adding new eggplant. Be careful of over doing it, though, because you don't want to "deep fry" your eggplant and thus end up with oily oily nasty eggplant. When you're done frying each piece, throw on a towel to get some of the oil off.
Fry away:
Also, by now your sauce should look like this:
Right now, you can preheat your oven to 350, because we're going to start getting this thing moving. At this point, I'd imagine your guests are getting horribly impatient and you're losing your audience. Bests you not rely on your wit and just start cooking faster.
In a casserole dish, pour a shallow layer of the sauce. Then start lining it with eggplant, like this:
I'm not a photographer. Clearly.
So, you do a layer of eggplant, then a layer of fresh mozzarella and grated parmesan. Then cover with sauce. The you do another layer of eggplant, THEN sauce and then some fresh basil and then the cheeses.
It should look this good:
You know what you do after that? Smile at your lazy impatient friends and toss it in the oven for about 25-30 minutes and keep smiling. Don't talk, because you'll probably ruin the dinner. Just wait until it starts bubbling and the cheese starts browning and then you're ready to serve. The warmer it is, the better off you are.
I didn't take a picture of this AFTER it was cooked because I was really hungry and my camera was nowhere to be seen.
Just be happy it didn't turn out like this:
Eat up, Guinea.
No comments:
Post a Comment