I obviously haven’t been doing much stuff with the food lately. Jeff has been staying with us, fixing up the house and making lots of good smelling (meat filled) food. School’s also back in full swing so I’ve been flying solo for a lot of meals and not feeling overly ambitious. I did, however, discover my new favorite way of making eggplant.
This is for Mickey, who is pretending/desperately hoping it’s Halloween season already:
Usually I only like eggplant breaded and fried a la eggplant parmigiana. Any other way I have ever tried to make eggplant it turns out the texture of wet styrofoam coated in rubber. The skin is also very thick and difficult to chew, unless you cut it in a striped pattern, which you’ll see in a sec. Eggplant parm is time consuming and oil filled. Lose, lose. I gave up.
Until I discovered THIS. What a lovely addition to the “Things You Recently Found Out Mayonnaise Can Do” file of my brain. You can also use any kind of tomato, but I like romas for this as they are so sweet, especially when roasted. This is an awesome lunch or dinner main dish.
Eggplant Parm Stacks
- 1 small eggplant, peeled like this and sliced into 1/4 – 1/2 slices, salted, rinsed and patted dry
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2 tablespoons light mayonnaise OR light sour cream (both are good, I prefer the mayo, of course)
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs (or more, if you like)
- 1/4 cup grated parm
- 3 cloves of garlic, roasted
- a few tablespoons olive oil
- 2 roma tomatoes, sliced thinnish
- one small piece torn from a ball of fresh mozzarella for each slice eggplant
- pepper to taste (you do not need more salt here)
- balsamic vinegar (optional)
Okay, kids, here we go.
Preheat oven to 325.
That eggplant’s salted right? RIGHT? If not, you absolutely HAVE to do this step otherwise you’re going to get hockey puck stacks. Sprinkle salt over your eggplant slices and go re-evaluate your life plan for twenty minutes while the eggplant sweats out all the moisture. Then make sure you rinse them off well and gently squeeze/pat out any excess. Toss the eggplant slices with flour to coat.
In a small bowl, beat the egg and mayonnaise/sour cream together. Mix the breadcrumbs and grated parm in a separate small bowl. Arrange some sort of plating arrangement so that you can
ONE! dip eggplant into egg
TWO! dredge eggplant through bread crumbs/parm
THREE! transfer to clean plate
FOUR! repeat
until you have gone through the whole eggplant. Now, take your roasted garlic cloves (you can roast them on the grill or in the oven) and mash them into a paste. Spread a !SMALL! (I love garlic, and I still emphasize this) amount of garlic onto each slice of eggplant. Top this with one slice of tomato and a light drizzle of olive oil. Throw the pan in the oven for 25-30 minutes. People tend to undercook eggplant, I did big time the first time I tried to make these, so just let them go for awhile until they are very soft. Pull them out when they are mostly done, top with mozzarella cheese and return them to the oven to melt. Pepper if you like and drizzle each with a few drops of balsamic if you want some Italian flavor overload.. or not, if you don’t.
Ready in: an hour, star to finish
Serves: one 
Also.. this article came out awhile ago in adbusters and I thought it was fantastic. I didn’t want to post it because it has nothing to do with food, but whatever. WARNING: if you go to school with me/work with me/are me, this might make you hate yourself for a little while, so get ready to self-deprecate/crawl in you skin/feel stupid.
1 Comment
September 17, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I AM GOING VEGAN – HURRY UP WITH RECIPES
MOM