Ingredients: |
Ingredients: 4 eggplant
flour
eggs
Italian style breadcrumbs
brown paper bags
sea salt
fresh ground pepper
Some good ass tomato sauce
Ricotta cheese
Parmesan cheese(fresh, not that canned stuff)
eggs(two eggs per pound of Ricotta, always and forever)
Fresh Basil
Dried Oregano
Fresh , Fresh Garlic (OK, the jar stuff will work, but i am a snob)Shredded Mozzarella
*now there are no amounts in this recipe, my downfall, I never write anything down. Dad told me that cooking is a love, a feel, become one with your food. If it tastes good to you , the hell with everyone else! oh yeah, wine for the chef.
|
Directions: |
Directions:Now, prepare for this to be an all day affair, a good affair, a love affair. The end will justify the means. Its good the same day, but best served the next day (all the yum yum gets a chance to say hello to one another).
Eggplant - Using a vegetable peeler, peel stripes in your eggplant, like a zebra. See the skin of an eggplant is very bitter. Some is good. All depends of preference. Slice eggplant in half inch rounds. Layout your brown paper bags. This is gonna sound weird but saves a step. Actually salt and pepper the surface of the bags. Layout your rounds on the seasoned bags and then season the upside of eggplant, (see, no need to flip because other side is already seasoned!). Let steep for about 20 min. You will notice liquid droplets on surface of eggplant. Take paper towel and pat each eggplant.
Prepare a standard breading station: Seasoned Flour(with salt, pepper, garlic, whatever) Beaten eggs, and in another pan, Italian bread crumbs. With one hand, coat in flour, then eggwash, then breadcrumbs. Be sure to have one hand only using dry stuff and one hand handling wet, otherwise you will have big gorilla fingers not to mention clump up your breadcrumbs!
Fry each eggplant in olive oil, medium to high heat. If oil is not high enough your eggplant will absorb all your oil and be greasy, if too hot, you will burn down your house.
Brown all eggplant and reserve.
Make ricotta mixture: Ricotta cheese, some fresh garlic, fresh basil, sea salt, fresh pepper, any other cheese you want to throw in there, lemon zest, proscuitto, etc. And most importantly, two eggs per pound of cheese.
In pan, start with sauce that will coat bottom of pan. A common mistake is to add too much sauce inside your Lasagna rather than on top resulting in a soupy mess. Layer eggplant on sauce, add some ricotta mix, some more cheese, some sauce, some love and repeat process until you get to the top. Last layer will be eggplant, cheese and sauce the whole thing and top with cheese.
Now, wrap in plastic wrap, then foil. If you just use foil, this will react with the acid in the tomato sauce and cause discolored and not so favorable tasting yum yum, so wrap in plastic wrap first. Bake at 350 for about 45 min, take foil and plastic off and bake for another 15 min or longer until golden brown. Let sit for at least 15 min. Although good now, Magic will happen if you put in refrigerator until tomorrow, and even better the next day. Enjoy |
Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: no really, do not rush this, have fun with it. you will be pleasantly surprised. You can get ricotta at the store, sold in 1# containers, if you want to go healthy, you can substitute low cal/fat cottage cheese instead, but who doesn't like fat?!
|
This recipe for Adaptation of Eggplant Parmesan (Eggplant Lasagna) is from